Pictured: Stephanie Kent Daisy Award Winner and nursing Team.

On a typical day, Stephanie Kent, RN moves quickly through the halls and floors of HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors Hospital. She starts her day volunteering to vaccinate caregivers for flu season, then meets with her team in ICU and then moves to the progressive care unit to meet caregivers she supervises. In between, she stops to offer encouragement to patients and their families and then snaps photos to celebrate the achievement of a new nurse. She does all this before starting her full time responsibilities as the Director of Critical Care, overseeing the intensive care unit and the progressive care unit. Recently, Chief Nurse Executive for the West Florida Division of HCA Florida Healthcare Leanne Salazar stopped by the hospital to present Kent with the West Florida Division DAISY Award. The DAISY Foundation sponsors this international award to recognize nurses for extraordinary compassion and skillful care. Nurses can be nominated by patients, families or their peers. Stephanie Kent, RN is only the second nurse to earn the division DAISY Award. Kent started her nursing career as a nurse extern, then worked in the medical surgery unit, was promoted to charge nurse and then became a nursing manager at HCA Florida Brandon Hospital during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has been the Director of Critical Care at HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors Hospital for more than two years.Nursing runs in her family. Her father is a nurse and as a child, she and her mother would visit her father at hospital for lunch. She was inspired seeing the nurses working. “I always wanted to be a nurse, I love people and I love taking care of people, “said Kent.

Pictured: Stephanie Kent Daisy Award Winner and nursing Team.