Diaraye Bebe Sylla

Diaraye “Bebe” Sylla started out as a Nursing Assistant at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Melanoma/Sarcoma Inpatient Unit in 1998. She worked in this role for 4 years while going to nursing school. She has worked on our unit up to now, working 2 years as an LVN and 5 years as an RN. Bebe is very passionate about enhancing the care that her patients receive. She finds opportunities for improvement on our unit and proposes and implements change to improve quality of care. Bebe has been actively involved with the division of nursing’s quality improvement initiative, Transforming Care at the Bedside (TCAB), and has implemented changes that promote safe and reliable care and enhance vitality and teamwork. Bebe, with the assistance of another colleague, has initiated the Discharge Care folders for patients and families. She identified that patients/families carry loose papers/documents all throughout their stay as well as when they get discharged. She suggested that all documents, i.e. educational materials, discharge instructions, patient schedule, medication list, etc. be placed in a single folder that the patient will be taking home, but will also be taking back to the hospital during visits or admissions. This simple initiative has enhanced safety and improved communication along the care continuum.

As a Clinical Nurse, Bebe attends to patients’ needs in a timely manner to ensure positive outcomes. She also takes the time to communicate with her patients, not just to educate them as regards to their treatment, but also to provide emotional support. Bebe has received several compliments from patients/families and here is a quote from one of them, “Thank you for being so caring and gentle with our mother. You are truly excellent at what you do!”

Bebe is well-liked by her peers as she maintains a positive attitude and brightens up the whole unit and her patients with her smile. She is highly flexible and functions in different roles: clinical nurse, discharge nurse, and charge nurse. Her energy radiates around the people she works with and helps improve moral in our busy work environment.

Aside from enhancing care of patients at M.D. Anderson, Bebe is dedicated in improving health care globally through prevention and education. She has served as the president of the American Friends of Guinea (AFG) since 2006. AFG is a 501C3 non-profit organization that is based here in Houston. Their work is done in Guinea West Africa, Bebe’s hometown. Bebe has been going to Guinea every summer since 2006 using her own personal funds. She travels with a medical team, visiting different area hospitals and health centers, performing needs assessments, and then coming up with action plans. The team chooses two hospitals or health centers with the most critical need each year. After they have identified the hospitals’/health centers’ most pressing need, such as lack of clean running water, Bebe utilizes this information to start raising funds here in Houston to help address these needs. Bebe, through AFG, has provided free medications and supplies to health centers that treat underserved populations. She has also helped save thousands of lives, mostly children affected with cholera – one of the deadliest infectious diseases in Guinea. In summer 2007, Bebe and her team of physicians and nurses visited different cholera camps and provided them with free antibiotics and IV hydration to help treat the cholera patients. She rented big trucks and paid a crew to pick up the trash left on the streets to stop cholera at its source. Bebe is very hands on and she assists in treating these patients. She has shown me a picture of a child that they treated who was very emaciated and compared it with a most recent picture – a healthy looking child. I have great respect for what Bebe does, the lives that she has touched and improved through her projects.

Bebe also traveled to Guinea in the summer of 2008 and provided one of the hospitals with electricity problems rechargeable batteries so they can continue treating the underserved population. Through AFG, she has also provided their partners at Engender Health Guinea surgical kits to help women suffering from uretro-vaginal fistulas and has personally assisted the doctors in caring for patients post surgical repairs of the fistulas. More information about the great work that Bebe does and some pictures can be found in this website: http://www.americanfriendsofguinea.org/index.html

Thank you for the opportunity to recognize an excellent nurse and a person with such a good heart.