admissions. What’s comforting to me to know as a patient is that anyone – doctor, nurse, patient, family member – can call on them. I plan to keep their phone number close at hand in case I get into trouble post-operatively.
Something else has changed and it’s not just at Toronto General Hospital, though TGH has been leading the way. It’s the adoptionof a corporate philosophy called “patient-centred care” that espouses “respect for patients and their values, beliefs, and concerns … and the promotion of physical comfort and emotional and spiritual health …” These ideas seemed a “no-brainer” to us nurses when it was first introduced a few years ago.
Wasn’t our care already all about the patient?
We were there to meet patients’ needs – it’s could be the definition of nursing. That’s why we chose this profession in the first place – to serve patients. Nursing care
is
patient care. To us, these terms are interchangeable. “Patients R Us” is like “Toys R Us.” Would you ask a dentist to be more “teethcentred?” Yet, the reality was that we often fell short, and we knew it. We’ve been pulled in too many other directions as we’ve tried to meet doctors’ demands, perform housekeeping, secretarial, and administrative duties, and, of course, all the “hunting and gathering” of equipment and supplies, tending to machines, completing paperwork, and charting on computers – all activities that dragoon us away from patients. Not to mention our own personal failings in trying to meet patient needs.
I will never forget the horrific experience of one nurse who was a patient. Her book,
Bed Number Ten
, had a huge impact on me as a young nurse. Nurse Sue Baier’s harrowing account of the cruel and indifferent treatment she received at the hands of hospital staff made me vow to never become one of those callous nurses like the ones who cared for her. Rendered paralyzed by Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, Nurse Baier was in the ICU for months and endured unspeakably insensitive, at times cruel, treatment by the staff. I hate to think that there might still be places where patients experience such inhumane treatment, but it’s possible.
However, I sense a sea change taking place in the delivery of patient care. Sincere and real efforts are being made to transformthe hospital culture into a kinder, friendlier place. These days, patients themselves have a much greater awareness of their right to courteous and respectful care and I hope they will not tolerate any less. Patient affairs departments are there to listen to families’ concerns and to step in to mediate conflicts when necessary. Hospitals are making efforts to raise awareness among all staff to improve our communication skills and to be more attuned to patients’ needs. We may still fall short at times, but progress is definitely being made. Well, I guess I’ll soon find out for myself, won’t I?
It’s a long and circuitous route to get to the Medical-Surgical ICU where I work, high up on the tenth floor. After the stark, ground-floor entrance hall with its hand-sanitizing stations and the lobby with its potted plastic plants, vinyl chairs and benches bolted to the floor, and rows of philanthropists’ bronze busts and donor plaques, you go past a bank of fast-food outlets (communal cafeterias long gone) and commercial gift shops (Volunteer Ladies’ Auxiliary Gift Shops vanished) and enter a twisty labyrinth of corridors (where patients are sometimes cared for, when the ER is overflowing, thus the moniker “hallway nursing”). You pass gleaming laboratories and procedure rooms and whiz by “quiet” rooms (a misnomer if there ever was one as they’re more like “disquiet” rooms, where patients go to wait and worry) and multifaith worship spaces. Down a sloping hallway past the ICU Reception Area (name changed from “Waiting Room,” presumably to take peoples’ minds off what
Something else has changed and it’s not just at Toronto General Hospital, though TGH has been leading the way. It’s the adoptionof a corporate philosophy called “patient-centred care” that espouses “respect for patients and their values, beliefs, and concerns … and the promotion of physical comfort and emotional and spiritual health …” These ideas seemed a “no-brainer” to us nurses when it was first introduced a few years ago.
Wasn’t our care already all about the patient?
We were there to meet patients’ needs – it’s could be the definition of nursing. That’s why we chose this profession in the first place – to serve patients. Nursing care
is
patient care. To us, these terms are interchangeable. “Patients R Us” is like “Toys R Us.” Would you ask a dentist to be more “teethcentred?” Yet, the reality was that we often fell short, and we knew it. We’ve been pulled in too many other directions as we’ve tried to meet doctors’ demands, perform housekeeping, secretarial, and administrative duties, and, of course, all the “hunting and gathering” of equipment and supplies, tending to machines, completing paperwork, and charting on computers – all activities that dragoon us away from patients. Not to mention our own personal failings in trying to meet patient needs.
I will never forget the horrific experience of one nurse who was a patient. Her book,
Bed Number Ten
, had a huge impact on me as a young nurse. Nurse Sue Baier’s harrowing account of the cruel and indifferent treatment she received at the hands of hospital staff made me vow to never become one of those callous nurses like the ones who cared for her. Rendered paralyzed by Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, Nurse Baier was in the ICU for months and endured unspeakably insensitive, at times cruel, treatment by the staff. I hate to think that there might still be places where patients experience such inhumane treatment, but it’s possible.
However, I sense a sea change taking place in the delivery of patient care. Sincere and real efforts are being made to transformthe hospital culture into a kinder, friendlier place. These days, patients themselves have a much greater awareness of their right to courteous and respectful care and I hope they will not tolerate any less. Patient affairs departments are there to listen to families’ concerns and to step in to mediate conflicts when necessary. Hospitals are making efforts to raise awareness among all staff to improve our communication skills and to be more attuned to patients’ needs. We may still fall short at times, but progress is definitely being made. Well, I guess I’ll soon find out for myself, won’t I?
It’s a long and circuitous route to get to the Medical-Surgical ICU where I work, high up on the tenth floor. After the stark, ground-floor entrance hall with its hand-sanitizing stations and the lobby with its potted plastic plants, vinyl chairs and benches bolted to the floor, and rows of philanthropists’ bronze busts and donor plaques, you go past a bank of fast-food outlets (communal cafeterias long gone) and commercial gift shops (Volunteer Ladies’ Auxiliary Gift Shops vanished) and enter a twisty labyrinth of corridors (where patients are sometimes cared for, when the ER is overflowing, thus the moniker “hallway nursing”). You pass gleaming laboratories and procedure rooms and whiz by “quiet” rooms (a misnomer if there ever was one as they’re more like “disquiet” rooms, where patients go to wait and worry) and multifaith worship spaces. Down a sloping hallway past the ICU Reception Area (name changed from “Waiting Room,” presumably to take peoples’ minds off what
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