Laura, who works at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital (USC-VHH), has seven years of clinical practice and nearly two years as a dedicated emergency department (ED) educator — a role she proudly pioneered within her organization and describes as her dream position. She is passionate about emergency care, with a strong focus on ensuring excellent care to children.
In her role as the pediatric liaison nurse at USC-VHH, she leads initiatives to improve the quality of care for pediatric patients and provides targeted education to ED staff to enhance pediatric readiness and confidence. Laura doesn’t see boundaries or barriers. She sees opportunities to improve pediatric care in every setting.
Laura helped train emergency nurses to respond to the imminent birth of a baby, putting policies in place and taking the staff through drills to increase their confidence. On another day, you might find her with a local Girl Scout troop, decked out in hilariously gruesome Halloween makeup to simulate injuries to teach first aid skills. Or you might find her meeting with leaders of local sexual assault response centers, building crucial relationships between those groups and the hospital, to ensure that emergency department nurses knew best practices for treating and protecting survivors of sexual assault. On another day, she might be staffing a health screening booth at a community event or festival. Her enthusiasm for health education — and her nursing practice — knows no bounds. Her willingness to reach out, to meet people wherever they are, makes her astonishingly effective.
Like all great educators, Laura puts people at ease and establishes her credibility all at the same time, so she can make deep connections with people and understand how best to serve them.