I was witness to remarkable patient-centered, superior patient care and an exceptional "family" experience that deserves recognition. Kenneth "Neal" Olivier, RN, was interacting with his patient's spouse, comforting her and listening to all her concerns as he was reporting to her that he would be going to lunch and named who the covering nurse would be as he reviewed the plan of care for his intubated patient. The spouse continued talking and he was so polite and continued the conversation until the opportunity came where he could excuse himself once again.
As he was leaving, he noticed a woman who was visibly upset, pacing in the hallway of the closed unit, 2E1. He came over and asked the woman who she was there to see. (It was a new admission who had arrived 45 minutes earlier). He excused himself and returned within minutes and updated the woman on the status of her father. He was not the admitting nurse but was able to speak on behalf of his co-workers. It would have been acceptable for him to simply relay to the patient's daughter that the primary nurse was tending to her father and she would retrieve them from the waiting room shortly. Neal went far beyond this as he could sense the daughter was still traumatized as she had verbalized witnessing her father having coded in the ER and the responsibility of comforting her frail mother. She went on to share that her parents were married for over 53 years, an entire lifetime expressed in a couple of brief seconds to a kind ear.
Neal offered to walk the daughter to the bedside but she declined,stating she could wait until they all went in to see him. Neal explained that her father was on medications to increase his blood pressure and was receiving dialysis, etc. The daughter was verbalizing her stress on how to convey this to her mother who was in the Family Waiting Room. Neal said, "Here, I will walk with you and explain all this to you and your mother."
I was so moved by this brief interaction that I witnessed. It was wonderful to see such collaboration and how he took the time to speak to the family to put them at ease. He knew the primary nurse was spending all her time, as she should be, providing vital life-saving treatment to her patient. While they are our patients, they are all someone's loved one, someone's father, husband, someone's everything.
We, as nurses, and healthcare professionals should support one another, always. Neal probably spent less than ten minutes providing this family basic information that gave them much needed comfort, if even only for a short time. I don't know what became of this patient or if Neal actually made it to lunch, but I know the impact this brief exchange had on me and can only imagine how it impacted the family. This is an incredible example of Patient-Family Centered Care, extraordinary nursing, and all that it encompasses.