March 2024
Nathan
Lee
,
ADN, RN
Acute Care
Marshall Medical Center South
Boaz
,
AL
United States
After talking to multiple people, he could have easily said it was too late, and there was nothing else he could do. However, Nathan learned the location of the fetus and received permission from the lab to see if he could return the baby to the mother’s room.
In November, Ms. D was admitted to Acute Care with abdominal pain and was found to be having a miscarriage at 17 weeks. The doctor performed an emergent D&C. Immediately after the D&C, the patient did not want to see the baby because she was very distraught and upset. However, later when she was out of surgery and when she arrived to her room, she decided she did want to see her baby. However, by this time, the OR staff and doctor had already left. Nathan Lee was the House Supervisor and started making phone calls to see how he could arrange for this patient to see her baby. He made several phone calls to the doctor, the OR staff, the lab, and consulted with the OB staff. After talking to multiple people, he could have easily said it was too late, and there was nothing else he could do. However, Nathan learned the location of the fetus and received permission from the lab to see if he could return the baby to the mother’s room. Nathan was able to reach out to different staff members to make this possible, showing great teamwork. Nathan had to manually go through and search a bin that contained the fetus, placenta, and surgical remains from the D&C to retrieve the baby. Nathan then cleaned the fetus and made sure it was presentable for Ms. D to see the baby. Nathan then took the baby to the room and the patient was able to spend time with her deceased baby until the next day. It was very important to Ms. D to have this time with her baby. Nathan did all of this all while assigning beds and responding/answering phone calls on the HS phone. Nathan could have easily said it was not possible, but instead, he went above and beyond to show compassion to the patient and the situation. If it were not for Nathan, this patient would have never got to see or spend time with her baby or received closure.