I work with Katherine in MNICU but because I am on day shift, and she is on night shift, I do not get to work with her directly. While I have always known Katherine to be a fantastic nurse, and one that I trust, I have not had the chance to see many of her interactions with patients or their family members due to our opposite shift schedule. On one particular shift, however, I finally did get to witness an interaction and what I witnessed went truly above and beyond. 

We had a very young patient, and through a terrible set of circumstances, he ended up in our unit. Sadly, by the time he came to us, he was already showing signs of brain death. After a few days, he was officially declared brain dead and the family made the impossibly difficult decision to donate his organs. After getting report from Katherine, she did not leave right away as many of us do at the end of our shift. I noticed that she had gone back into the patient’s room and was talking to his mom and dad. As I soon came to find out, she had told them that before she left, she would let them use her stethoscope to listen to his heartbeat. Unfortunately, due to the swelling and air under the skin on his chest, it was impossible to hear. 

While I’m sure Katherine was disheartened, she was not going to give up. So, with quick thinking, she came up with the idea of using the doppler machine so his parents were not only able to hear his heartbeat, but they could also record it to keep it forever. 

While I stayed in the room to help them record, Katherine quietly stepped out. She came back a short time later with 2 small bottles in her hand. In one bottle was the EKG tracing of the exact time that the parents were listening to his heart so that they also had something tangible to keep as well. The second bottle was for a locket of his hair. 

While these things in no way changed what had happened to their son, the happiness I saw momentarily replace their grief in their eyes at hearing the sound of his heartbeat, and receiving those momentos is something that I will never forget.

Almost 2 hours after her shift had ended, Katherine finally left work to head out of town to attend a funeral for her own family member. Even though I am sure that she was dealing with her own pain and sadness, you would have never known because fulfilling her promise to his parents was all that mattered in that moment. 

Not only do I believe that this shows what it is to Care Like Family, but it is exactly the high standards of what this profession should be, selfless, compassionate, empathetic, human interaction during someone’s most difficult times. 

Katherine made this family’s final moments with their son just a tiny bit better, and witnessing that is something I will always remember.