Essence of Nursing Honorees 2010: Paula Trabucco, RNBWH Nurse - For and about the Nursing Staff of Brigham and Women's HospitalEssence of Nursing Honorees 2010: Paula Trabucco, RNBWH Nurse - For and about the Nursing Staff of Brigham and Women's Hospital

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Paula Trabucco, RN

Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit


Paula Trabucco, RN, has shaped her nursing career around the guiding principle: Learn all you can, and share what you learn with those around you.

An expert bedside nurse, Trabucco has become a champion for quality improvement and recognizing the need for patient and family involvement in their care. Her leadership in these areas has led to changes in practice in the Neuroscience ICU and beyond.

“The quality, safety and patient care work that Paula is involved in reflects the high professional stature of her nursing practice,” said nursing director Shaun Golden, BSN, RN. “It allows for her clinical knowledge and expertise to develop further while, at the same time, directing and upholding the professional practice standards and expectation of all nurses in the Neuroscience ICU.”

As chair of the Neuro ICU Partners in Care team, Trabucco has helped to address many challenges, and the team’s work on several projects has resulted in a reduction in restraint usage, improved nursing hand-offs, a renewed focus on patient and family centered care and improved hand hygiene awareness and compliance—which is often at 100 percent among nurses during audits on the unit.

“Complacency among nurses does not exist in the Neuroscience ICU, and that’s partly due to the work of Paula,” wrote her colleague William Poirier, MSN, RN, in a letter of support. “Her interest and excitement in the Partners in Care team is palpable and cannot help but affect those working around her, including myself.”

Vince Vacca, MSN, RN, CCRN, nurse educator, who nominated Trabucco for the award, said that she is an expert nurse whose leadership and passion have inspired her colleagues and ensured the best care to patients and families. “Paula leads by words and by example, demonstrating personal integrity, exemplary ethics, clinical competence and strong reliable leadership,” he said. “She personifies the principle that suggests caring is more than something nurses do; caring is something nurses give.”

Trabucco earned her diploma in nursing at Saint Vincent Hospital School of Nursing and her associate’s degree at Worcester State College. She joined BWH in 1984 as a staff nurse in the Burn Trauma ICU and transferred to the Neuroscience ICU when it opened in 2000.