Submitted photo New Ulm Medical Center (NUMC) Nurse Practioner Sara Kanuch receives The DAISY Award recently for extraordinary nursing. She is the first NUMC recipient of the biannual award. The DAISY (Diseases Attacking the Immune System) Foundation was created in 1999 by the family of J. Patrick Barnes who died at 33 from autoimmune disease complications.

NEW ULM — New Ulm Medical Center Nurse Practioner Sara Kanuch recently received the DAISY Award for extraordinary nurses.

The first NUMC recipient of the biannual award, she was nominated by a patient.

Excerpts from the patient included “Sara was always caring, compassionate and quite simply wonderful. She never made me feel like I was taking too much of her time at any appointment. She always listened to concerns and was on top of any new issues. I would shudder to think how I might have made it through this journey without ‘my Sara.’

“She is an absolute gem. I can’t say enough about how knowledgeable she is. When I had a question she didn’t have an answer for she never just said ‘I can’t answer that, I don’t know.’ Instead she said, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you. And she did. So thank you, thank you, thank you Sara. On a scale of 1-10, you are a 20.”

The DAISY (Diseases Attacking the Immune System) Foundation was created in 1999 by the family of J. Patrick Barnes who died age 33 from autoimmune disease complications.

As they reflected on ways to honor him, they kept coming back to the extraordinary care he received from his nurses. They were overwhelmed by the compassion and kindness that his nurses brought to his beside day in an day out.

Nurses selected for the award received an honoree pin, a certificate, and a Healer’s Touch sculpture. It has become a tradition to celebrate the honoree with cinnamon rolls to share with their team. When Pat Barnes lost his appetite, that was what he was able to eat one morning, and he asked his father to bring in more for the nurses caring for him.

What started as a thank you to his nurses has grown into a recognition program that is now present in thousands of health care organizations across the globe.