Summer 2023 DAISY Award®

Cayla Wheeler, a 2023 graduate of the practical nursing program at Kankakee Community College, has been awarded The DAISY Award® for Extraordinary Nursing Students.

The award is part of The DAISY Foundation's mission to express gratitude to nurses with programs that recognize them for the extraordinary, compassionate, and skillful care they provide patients and families.

Wheeler, a Bourbonnais resident, was nominated by Madison Norvell, a staff member at Riverside Assisted Living. She was chosen by a committee at KCC, and the award was presented on July 20 at KCC’s Practical Nursing pinning ceremony. Wheeler received a certificate, a DAISY Award pin and a sculpture called A Healer’s Touch, hand-carved by artists of the Shona Tribe in Zimbabwe.

“We heard about the teaching tools that all the students had to give their assigned resident, so we took the time to see what each student came up with,” Norvell said. “Cayla took the time to make her teaching tool specific to her resident’s wants and needs. She went above and beyond thinking about how to make it practical for the resident to use and enjoy. She has a great bedside manner and really took the time to get to know her resident outside of her medical diagnosis. I was able to talk with the resident … and she was brought to tears over the amount of time, effort and thought that went into doing this for her. She even made sure to have it on display.

“‘Compassionate’ is one of the top words I would use to describe Cayla, and the world will be a better place with her as a nurse.”

Wheeler is currently working as a mental health nurse at Riverside Medical Center.

About The DAISY Foundation

The DAISY Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, by members of his family. Patrick died at the age of 33 in late 1999 from complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. (DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System.) The care Patrick and his family received from Nurses while he was ill inspired the creation of The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses, an evidenced-based means of providing nurse recognition and thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patient families.

More information is available at DAISYfoundation.org.