Mary Burgess
November 2020
Mary
Burgess
,
RN
Emergency Department
Atrium Health Mercy
The police were able to take this girl to the battered women's shelter, remove her children from the house and arrest this man. Without Mary's discovery, this patient would have been discharged home into this terrible situation!
Yesterday Mary made an awesome impact on a 24yr old girl's life. This young lady checked in for pelvic pain and bleeding. I actually did her triage. She denied concern for std/pregnancy. Afterward, her test results came back positive for trichomoniasis. Mary became concerned since she was very adamant about not being sexually active. Mary started to do some digging in her chart. At her past three visits, she also tested positive for other sexually transmitted diseases. Mary decided she needed to have a heart to heart conversation with this young girl. After spending some time in the room with her the patient confided to Mary that she was being drugged and raped by her roommate, and possibly his friends. We were able to bring this to the physician's attention and SANE was contacted immediately. The police were able to take this girl to the battered women's shelter, remove her children from the house and arrest this man. Without Mary's discovery, this patient would have been discharged home into this terrible situation!
***
I just wanted to make you all aware of the extraordinary care that the nurse, Mary did today. In short, we had a young woman come in for pelvic pain. She had been seen for this several times over the last month or two and even was admitted for suspected PID. She came back today with worsening pain and said she was not sexually active. Something was not adding up and Mary took the extra time to talk to this patient and was able to find out that she was being sexually assaulted by her roommate. The extra time that Mary took with this patient and the compassionate care possibly saved this woman more pain etc. it was very difficult for her to talk about it because she was worried about where she would stay and her own safety.
I just wanted to bring this to your attention because this is definitely going above and beyond and shows that just taking some time can really make a difference in someone's life. The patient was going to a shelter and was going to be safe. It makes me proud to be a part of the team at Mercy when we see care like this. Mary told me that she is very sensitive to domestic violence as her older sister was murdered by her husband. I can't imagine what it's like to go through something like that but experiences such as that sometimes make us stronger and make us better at taking care of others in a similar situation.
***
I just wanted to make you all aware of the extraordinary care that the nurse, Mary did today. In short, we had a young woman come in for pelvic pain. She had been seen for this several times over the last month or two and even was admitted for suspected PID. She came back today with worsening pain and said she was not sexually active. Something was not adding up and Mary took the extra time to talk to this patient and was able to find out that she was being sexually assaulted by her roommate. The extra time that Mary took with this patient and the compassionate care possibly saved this woman more pain etc. it was very difficult for her to talk about it because she was worried about where she would stay and her own safety.
I just wanted to bring this to your attention because this is definitely going above and beyond and shows that just taking some time can really make a difference in someone's life. The patient was going to a shelter and was going to be safe. It makes me proud to be a part of the team at Mercy when we see care like this. Mary told me that she is very sensitive to domestic violence as her older sister was murdered by her husband. I can't imagine what it's like to go through something like that but experiences such as that sometimes make us stronger and make us better at taking care of others in a similar situation.