Celebrate Caring winner Francis Doran takes nursing mission to streets of Kensington

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- For the 6th year in a row, Independence Blue Cross is honoring the region's outstanding nurses. Over 1,000 nominations came in and now we have the winners!

One winner is a young man braving the streets of Kensington to help those in need of medical care. Francis Doran's mission to make a difference began as a child.

"I was less than 10 years old, maybe. I was on vacation and I found someone unconscious next to a lake," Francis recalls.

Not knowing first aid, he felt helpless, so he later became a certified lifeguard and switched from biology to nursing in college.

He's now a full-time nurse in cardiac intensive care at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, helping patients progress from being desperately sick to homeward bound.

But Francis found a special mission volunteering with the Kensington Project. Dawn McGinnis founded the organization after losing her daughter Alyssa to an accidental drug overdose after a long struggle with addiction.

"I just felt the need to do something," said Dawn. "We provide food, clothing, support to those that are homeless and living in Kensington."

Francis and his girlfriend Katie, a physician assistant, collect supplies and provide wound care, especially for IV drug users.

"He will walk up and down the line and ask if anyone needs wound care," she says. "Then he will just set up, pull out his bag, sit down right in the street."

"It's definitely intimidating to see all the needles," Francis says, but he wasn't deterred. "It was like a humbling experience of seeing what is like firsthand down there."

But Francis and Katie go even further, helping addicts get into recovery, and following up to make sure they're getting the RIGHT care.

"They don't always get adequate care if they don't have an advocate," Dawn said. "They're able to check and see what what their levels are, when they run bloodwork, what they're dosing them with. And it kind of just gives the doctors and nurses an idea that somebody is looking out for them. Unless they're getting adequate dosing, a lot of them will leave before their care is finished."

Koleen Cavanaugh, chief marketing officer at Independence Blue Cross, says her late predecessor Paula Sunshine created Celebrate Caring to honor nurses like Francis.

"They see a need and they fill it. It just seems to come naturally to them," she said. "She really saw that there was an opportunity for us to shine a light on nurses and what they do the important role they play in the health care system."

Francis says his street patients are grateful for the care.

"They look out for us when we're down there to make sure we're safe, providing the stuff that we do for them," he says.

But Francis and Dawn agree that the city's current effort to "clean up" Kensington is hampering their drive to provide care. They feel targeted by city crews supposedly clearing debris with leaf blowers, repeatedly going up and down blocks when the Kensington Project volunteers arrive.

"We've literally had them down on the ground with people's open wounds. And they (city crews) will come by with the blowers and blow the trash and the needles right onto Frank while he's cleaning open wounds," Dawn said.

The Sunshine Award comes with a $2,500 donation to a charity of the nurse's choice. Francis says his will go to the Kensington Project.