During the virtual event on August 10-11, 2021, Huron Consulting Group announced that Dr. Sinzi was the recipient of the What’s Right in Health Care® Hero Award. This award honours values-driven healthcare professionals who are committed to making healthcare better.

Dr. Sinzi joined the Anesthesia Department at our Hospital in 2018. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated excellence in patient-centered clinical care, research, and education. As stated by Huron, Dr. Sinzi won the award for her overall professional excellence and impactful contributions to our Hospital prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her impact includes:

• In the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Sinzi pulled together a group of anesthesiologists and created an Anesthesia COVID-19 Task Force.
• To help her anesthesia colleagues better understand the new guidelines and changes in techniques to provide safe perioperative care for COVID-19 patients, Dr. Sinzi and her team create a simulation video that now has over 14,000 views.
• When our Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was forced to double its capacity. She volunteered to do ICU shifts as a physician-extender, a program designed to help the ICU physicians with the extra volume of patients.
• When Dr. Sinzi saw how overwhelmed the ICU nurses were by the surge in cases, she collaborated with the physicians, nurses and administrative team at our Hospital to create a training program called Physicians as ICU Care Providers, to allow HRH physicians to deliver ICU nursing care.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted her exceptional leadership abilities, as well as her commitment to serve her patients, her colleagues, and other members of the health care team. Dr. Sinzi’s commitment to provide necessary care to the ICU patients helped increase physician engagement in the hospital. It has sparked collaboration, empathy and a deep sense of respect and trust between all the health care workers in the ICU, which has had a very positive effect that will certainly outlast the pandemic. Congratulations Dr. Sinziana Avramescu!