patty mclain, RN

We recently had a young male patient in our Unit that was very depressed. His high risk surgery was long and complicated, and as a result he was left paralyzed from the waist down. Despite slow and steady progress with his over-all medical recovery, there was no improvement with the paralysis. The patient was 23 and a paraplegic. Patty's kindness and compassion had her looking for ways to help improve his low self-esteem. For 59 days our staff had been providing excellent nursing care, but none of us knew that the bearded young man with a head full of thick black hair had always been clean shaven and preferred baldness to the thick curly hair he now had. He told Patty he felt like a gorilla. So Patty brought in her own family's set of hair clippers and scissors and offered the young man a "barber shop day". His mother and friend helped him shave his beard off and then shaved his head as well. While laughing and watching his familiar face return in the mirror, the patient started having his first real big and sincere smile in weeks. The transformation in his attitude and outlook was a impressive as the one from the clippers. He actually did a lot of the shaving and adjusting of the clipper blades and angles himself mock much more action than he had been doing with PT & OT prior to his "barber shop day".

Thanks to Patty's insight, thoughtfulness and willingness to share her own equipment with one of her patients this young man was able to start feeling better about himself again - an essential element in his long recovery and return to everyday life and independence.