Jill Petersen
December 2021
Jill
Petersen
,
RN
Medical/Surgical Unit
Genesis Medical Center
DeWitt
,
IA
United States

 

 

 

Jill got out her personal phone and played the same music for him that she played for his mother.
I was a witness to such a beautiful thing Jill did for a patient. The patient was a man (J.W.) who was dying from metastatic cancer, including metastasis to the brain. He would become very agitated and painful at times. After Jill realized that this patient was the son of a 96 yr. old woman whom we had as a patient on our unit a month prior. We had all come to know that she was the core of a very large devoted Catholic family and Jill played spiritual music for her. One night when J.W. was agitated, Jill got out her personal phone and played the same music for him that she played for his mother. It immediately calmed him down and in fact at times while it played he would start praying out loud to God or start trying to sing along with the song. It was a great source of distraction from his pain and calmed him when he was agitated. The next day in report she passed it on to the day shift and the charge nurse immediately got a radio from the activities department and put it in his room and turned on similar music. When his wife and daughter came that day their eyes filled with tears and were very grateful for what we had done for him.....all because of Jill's great idea.