Medical Surgical Units
Tiffany Phenicie, RN, B.S.N.
Inpatient Unit Director
tphenicie@health.ucdavis.edu
The Cardiology Services Unit is a 36 bed telemetry unit. The nurses on this unit manage the care of patients on the cardiology inpatient services, patients who are pre and post cardiac/vascular intervention procedures, and other acute care specialty patients who have a need for cardiac telemetry monitoring. Collaboration, teamwork and attentiveness to the needs of each patient are key components to the excellent care provided to our patient populations.
Darrell Desmond RN, M.S.N., N.E.-B.C.
Nurse Manager
The Oncology/Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) unit is a 35-bed unit, specializing in the care of patients with cancer. The nurses provide comprehensive care to patients undergoing treatment for cancer, including chemotherapy, radiation, stem cell transplant, and immune effector cell therapy. The BMT unit consists of 8 private rooms dedicated to BMT patients. The FACT-accredited BMT program annually serves over 100 Bone Marrow Transplant patients. As an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, many of the patients on Davis 8 are also on clinical trials, requiring specialized knowledge and attention to detail. Nursing works closely with the interdisciplinary team to manage the complex regimens, physical symptoms, and psychosocial effects associated with cancer treatment. Our goal is individualized, comprehensive care for every patient, and we are proud to be ranked among the U.S. News BEST Hospitals for Cancer for 2024-2025.
Siri Johnson, RN, B.S.N., M.S.N., C.M.S.R.N.
Nurse Manager
The Trauma Nursing Unit (TNU) is a 36-bed unit that specializes in the care of patients of Trauma and Burn Service patients. The unit also provides comprehensive medical-surgical telemetry care for many other services including Medicine, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery, Palliative, and Hospice. Care may include complicated wound care, drain management, mobility rehabilitation and training, respiratory care, nutritional therapy, isolation precautions, psychiatric care, and end-of-life support. The unit embraces primary nursing and interdisciplinary teamwork to manage complex physical and psychosocial aspects of healing to promote optimal outcomes.
Siri has 20+ years of healthcare experience in Medical Surgical Trauma Nursing. She served in a variety of TNU roles prior to becoming the Unit Director in 2019. She is a member of the American Nurses Association (ANA), American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL), and the Academy of Medical Surgical Nurses (AMSN). She has enjoyed Coro, Rising Nurse Leaders (RNL), and Wharton Leadership Programs, holds her Medical Surgical Certification through AMSN, and is passionate about growing nurses. In her free time Siri enjoys spending time with her children, reading, hiking, and gardening.
Michelle Johnson, M.S.N., R.N.-B.C.
Inpatient Unit Director/Nurse Manager
The Surgical Specialties Unit is a 36 bed Medical-Surgical-Telemetry Unit that manages post-op surgical adult patients. Our specialty services include: vascular, urology, colorectal, foregut, bariatrics, surgical oncology, and gynecology oncology. Davis 12 is the inpatient unit designated as a national accredited Center of Excellence for Bariatric Surgery. We have outstanding collaborative relationships with our surgeons and have interdisciplinary service huddles. The nursing staff collaborate as a cohesive team and are highly competent clinicians providing excellent, individualized patient care.
Dorine Fowler, RN, M.S.N., M.S.
Nurse Manager
The Orthopedic/Trauma Unit is a 36-bed acute care specialty and telemetry unit that provides inpatient care and treatment for adult and pediatric patients with a variety of medical and surgical needs. Orthopedic and Plastic Surgery patients are the unit's primary population. The orthopedic surgery services include trauma, spine, total joints, sports, tumor, peds, hand, foot, and ankle. Our unit also provides medical surgical care to patients from other services, including but not limited to, Trauma Surgery, Burn Surgery, Acute Care Surgery, Neurosurgery, Neurology and Medicine.
Thurmann Pangilinan, M.S.N., R.N.
Inpatient Unit Director
trpangilinan@health.ucdavis.edu
Accelerated Access is a 34 bed adult med/surg unit. Patients are a combination of short stays and admissions from the ER and clinics. Many patients come to E4 to await specialty placement on units that are full such as Oncology. Because of our purpose and unit structure, patient turnover is very high resulting in an extremely well coordinated team of professional nurses. We are also the home unit for the Cystic Fibrosis patient population. The unit currently employs a staff of 41 registered nurses and 4 hospital unit service coordinators.
Lisa Eller MSN, RN, CRRN, CSPHC
Inpatient Unit Director
The Neuroscience Unit is a 35-bed acute care unit specializing in the care of neurosurgical, neurotrauma, neurology, and stroke patients. Patient diagnoses include traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, subdural and epidural hematomas, brain tumor, aneurysm, intracerebral hemorrhage, spinal surgery, and stroke. The unit serves as the specialty area for the management of stroke patients.
Barbara Gumnor, RN, M.S.N., C.C.R.N., C.R.N.I.
Nurse Manager
The Cardiothoracic Progressive Care Unit is a 24-bed unit. The nurses on this unit provide comprehensive care of patients after cardiac surgery and thoracic surgery, as well as those with heart failure, ventricular assist devices (VAD's) and on mechanical ventilation. The nurses on this unit also care for a small population of trauma patients with chest tubes, as well as other acute care specialty patients who require an intermediate level of nursing care. Collaboration, teamwork and attentiveness to the needs of each patient are key components to the excellent care provided to our patient populations.
Marlene Armstead Ambler, M.S.N., RN
Inpatient Unit Director
The Neuroscience Unit is a 15 bed acute care unit specializing in the care of neuro surgical, neuro trauma, neurology, and stroke patients. The unit has four dedicated beds which allow for video EEG monitoring. Patient diagnoses include traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, subdural and epidural hematomas, brain tumor, aneurysm, intracerebral hemorrhage, spinal surgery, seizure and ischemic stroke. The unit serves as the specialty area for the management of stroke patients.
Jason Navarro, B.S.N., RN
Unit Nurse Manager
East 8 Medical-Surgical Specialties & Palliative Care
jhnavarro@health.ucdavis.edu
Jason Navarro began his nursing journey at UC Davis Health in 2011 as a new graduate nurse in the Medical-Surgical Intensive Care Unit (MSICU-Gold). His clinical foundation in critical care grew as he transitioned to Tower 2 Surgical ICU (SICU), where he further refined his skills in managing complex surgical and trauma patients. In 2015, Jason took on a leadership role as the Assistant Nurse Manager for the Adult Annex Unit, supporting the expansion and operational development of new adult inpatient services. In 2024, Jason was appointed as the Nurse Manager for East 8 Medical-Surgical Specialties and Palliative Care. Drawing on over a decade of critical care and leadership experience, he now leads a dynamic team of nurses, assistant nurse managers, and interdisciplinary partners dedicated to delivering high-quality, compassionate care.
About East 8
The East 8 Medical-Surgical Specialties Unit is a 30-bed acute care unit specializing in the management of patients with diverse medical and surgical needs. The unit has unique expertise in caring for patients requiring ventilator support, focusing on optimizing respiratory status and facilitating ventilator weaning. Additionally, East 8 serves as a dedicated palliative care unit, prioritizing symptom management, dignity, and quality of life for patients and their families facing serious illness.
Under Jason's leadership, the unit continues to foster a culture of clinical excellence, interprofessional collaboration, and patient-centered care aligned with UC Davis Health’s mission to advance health for all.
Calene Roseman, Ph.D., RN
Nurse Manager
croseman@health.ucdavis.edu
The Adult Care Unit consists of 12 bed unit located in the old emergency department (ED) area one. The nurses in this unit provide care to stable adult patients whom have admission orders from the ED and are awaiting an inpatient bed assignment for admission. Our patient population consists of a wide range of medical surgical acute care illness. The Diverse nursing staff embodies collaborative team work approach to evidence base care to our patients with a high level of quality care.
Emily Torres RN, M.S., N.E.A.-B.C.
Nurse Manager
Tower 4 is a 28-bed medical-surgical unit specializing in otolaryngology, more commonly known as Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT). We treat patients with infections, trauma, birth defects, malignancies, and those patients with specialized airways like laryngectomies and tracheostomies. Additionally, we care for complex adult and adolescent medical surgical patients requiring hospitalization. We are proud of the safe, high-quality, and compassionate care we provide to our patients and their families.
Emily Torres RN, M.S., N.E.A.-B.C.
Nurse Manager
The Medical Surgical Unit is an 8-bed unit with the purpose of allowing transfers or admissions of medical surgical acute care patients who would benefit from a single room placement due to isolation or other identified needs. The unit specializes in the care of mechanically ventilated patients with tracheostomies. The unit serves a variety of services including General Medicine, Acute Care Surgery, and Hospitalist Service. We rely on teamwork, compassion, and evidence-based practice in order to ensure safe and high quality of care.
Amanda Waters, RN, M.S.N., P.C.C.N., C.N.L.
Inpatient Unit Director
Nurse Manager
Tower 8 Transplant-Metabolic Unit is a 28-bed acute care unit. The unit provides advanced assessment and specialized care for patients undergoing solid organ transplant (liver, adult and pediatric kidney). Additionally, care is provided for telemetry, pulmonary hypertension, urologic surgery, oncology and a wide variety of medical-surgical patients.
The patient population profile of the kidney and liver transplant unit includes living donors and non-living donors.
Living donation is the process of transplanting a kidney or liver from a healthy individual into a person with kidney or liver failure. UC Davis Health System also provides the opportunity to match incompatible living donor pairs with other pairs across the country. Non-living donation includes the Standard Criteria Donors (SCD) and the Expanded Criteria Donor (ECD) (which is any donor over the age of 60). ECD kidneys are transplanted in expanded criteria recipients. Also, en bloc (both kidney from very small pediatric donors that cannot be matched with pediatric recipients) are transplanted to adults.
Tower 8 is proud of the quality of our care because we tailor treatment to each individual patient. We provide intensive education for our patients and family. The multidisciplinary team of surgeons, nephrologists, residents, interns, nurse practitioner, transplant coordinators, social workers, discharge planner, nurse manager, assistant nurse manager, bedside nurse, transplant pharmacist, transplant dietician, and round daily (with the exemption of weekends and holidays) on the transplant patients.
UC Davis Health is a designated Comprehensive Center for Pulmonary Hypertension and Tower 8 is the dedicated acute care area outside of ICU for pulmonary hypertension patients on vasoactive.
Tower 8 is a recipient of Team Daisy Award and multiple PRISM Awards. The care we provide has been recognized with a 2010 HealthGrades Award for graft rate survival and 2010 silver Medal of Honor and a bronze Transplant Program Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Service Administration.
Tamika Joiner, M.S.N., M.H.A., RN, N.E.-B.C.
Inpatient Unit Director
Patient Care Resources, Acute Care,
Critical Care, Children’s Hospital Float Pool HUSC Float Pool
joiner@health.ucdavis.edu
Patient Care Resources provides 24/7 RN and HUSC Float Pool coverage to a variety of inpatient areas within the Patient Care Services division. The department has over 200 employees, both per diem and career. In addition, the department also has several programs that provide support to the inpatient units: Float Pool, Per Diem Pool, STAN Program, Action Team, Rapid Response Team, SOS Nurses, and Children's Hospital Seasonal Float Team, and Development Programs in the Pediatric Specialty and Adult Critical Care Specialty areas, as well as the Acute Care – Float Pool Residency Program. Paul Fankhanel has been the manager of PCR since 2016.
