Jessi Delaney, selfless in her patient care, is Gold U winner

Jessi Delaney believes she found her place as a nurse to work with oncology patients.

Delaney started as a care tech on the oncology floor at the Nebraska Medical Center in 2010 when she was still in nursing school at Clarkson College. She graduated in 2014 and went on to become a nurse at the med center’s bone marrow transplant unit, the infusion center and later in radiology with Nebraska Medicine in Bellevue.

Now, Delaney is a clinical study nurse coordinator with the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center’s Clinical Trials Office and collaborates with the cancer center’s Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence. She said she appreciates the relationships she forms with her cancer patients and the connections she forms with them in their care.

“Knowing that I helped them in that part of their lives,” Delaney said, “it’s just so rewarding.”

For her outstanding efforts, Delaney will be recognized this month as UNMC’s Kudos winner and Gold U Award recipient. She will receive the award at the Thursday, Aug. 14, meeting of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.

Working with clinical trials, Delaney appreciates her job is part research, part case management for her patients. With some clinical trials, she said, it can be strenuous with the requirements the patients have to go through.

Monica Davis, Delaney’s coworker who nominated her for the award, said Delaney is a great team member. Davis said Delaney helps others in the department develop their strengths and educates her coworkers, striving for excellence.

“In the world of clinical trials, there is no room for misses and errors,” Davis wrote in her nomination. “She knows the protocols and expectations and holds others to those standards, as well, so the best outcome is there for the patient.”    

Davis described Delaney as honest, transparent, unafraid to make tough decisions and someone who stands up for her patients.

“Jessi is selfless in caring for her patients as well as her colleagues,” Davis wrote. She added, “UNMC is lucky to have her.”

Delaney said she loves to be at UNMC. “I wouldn’t want to work at a different hospital,” she said.

She also appreciated hearing all the kudos in her award nomination.

“It’s a tremendous accomplishment,” Delaney said. “I’m very proud of myself for being nominated.”