In the ten years that Brandon has been with Cedars-Sinai, he has transformed from a novice nurse into a neuro ICU nurse leader, loved by all his colleagues and deeply appreciated by patients and their families. Brandon cares for critically ill people who have suffered traumatic brain injury, strokes and seizures. He knows that in order for patients to have the best outcomes, nurses must be well supported and resourced. He has thrown himself into the work of caring for the caregivers—teaching skills to his fellow nurses, mentoring new hires, celebrating staff with parties and events, and always being willing to look for solutions. 

Nurse recruitment and retention is an important effort in any hospital, and Brandon has dedicated himself to making sure his unit attracts and keeps the best nurses. He knows that mentoring novice nurses is particularly important to retention, so he designed a novel system in which leadership gets routine updates on the progress of new hires, so that they can provide tailored support and appropriate patient assignments. 

Brandon keeps the patient at the center of his care. When a patient’s condition deteriorated rapidly, instead of blindly following visitation procedure, Brandon looped in a child support liaison to make sure that a child could visit their family member. He supported the family to understand and emotionally process the patient’s condition. 

Brandon has a YouTube channel dedicated to his home garden. At work, he initiated a go-green program that brought live plants into the unit, which brings a sense of calm and wellbeing to an otherwise stressful environment.Â