TUPELO, Miss.—North Mississippi Medical Center has awarded its most recent DAISY Award to registered nurse Derrick Bush of the Emergency Department.

He was nominated by the wife of a patient on the COVID-19 unit, where Bush was working at the time. “A diagnosis of COVID is a fearful thing but requiring hospitalization for COVID takes fear to a whole new level,” she wrote. “I am a registered nurse and I know how ill he was, and the thought of ‘dropping him off’ at the hospital was almost more than I could bear.” As she sat in the Emergency Department parking lot, she asked God to send the best people to care for her husband, “and God did just that,” she wrote.

Once admitted to the COVID-19 unit, her husband met Bush. “His calming voice and confident demeanor was just the dose of medicine my husband needed,” she wrote. “Derrick assured (my husband) that he would be with him all night.” Although not always physically in his room, every time her husband looked up, he could see Derrick watching over him from the nurse’s window. She said Bush was true to his word and never left her husband alone at a time when he felt isolated and craved interaction with others.

“Derrick treated (my husband) as if he was the only patient he had to care for and that he genuinely cared about him,” she wrote. “He was skilled in his profession, but he was much more than that to (my husband). He was a solace in a time of great distress. An exceptional nurse is one that exhibits what Christ commands—love for mankind. Derrick is truly an asset to the nursing profession and to North Mississippi Medical Center.”

A native of Lexington, Bush resides in West Point. He earned his associate degree in nursing from Mississippi University for Women in 2012. He joined the NMMC staff five years ago working on 2 West and transferred to the Emergency Department a year later.

Bush received a certificate, a DAISY Award pin, a bouquet donated by Bishop’s Flower Shop and a hand-carved stone sculpture titled A Healer’s Touch.

The DAISY Award is an international program that rewards and celebrates the extraordinary compassionate and skillful care given by nurses every day. For more information, call (662) 377-3431 or email daisyawards@nmhs.net.