I wanted to let you know that one of my patients today told me that Sue Spara was extremely helpful to him despite him being rather nasty to her. He asked me to apologize on his behalf. She had helped work on some issues he's having with the VA in general, and he wanted our help with some remaining issues. I told him I would fill her in, and I'm sure she'd help us work on this stuff with primary care because she's very good at making things happen and following up. I later told Sue, and she said, of course, she'd help. This just echoes other comments from patients.

One of my patients who was getting the run around from ENT for months, despite the fact he couldn't swallow his pills and was having trouble breathing, got to the point that his psych symptoms worsened. He has a serious h/o violence when not on meds. Sue took the issue on and coordinated arranging for him to get a shot of Abilify and have the pharmacy overnight chewable/dissolvable meds (where possible). She also repeatedly contacted ENT until the arrangements were made for him to get his laser surgery at Upstate since the timeframe for the VA getting approval to use the laser here was unknown.

She is also the only other person that one Veteran in particular will actually talk to, and she has spent many hours coordinating his care and offering support. She went to a comp & pen exam with a patient who has PTSD and MST. She also intervened on the patient’s behalf when I referred her to get a sleep study, and she was afraid to do the test at the hospital since there was a shared bathroom (she was brutally assaulted in a bathroom). She didn't really have to do any of these things. We could have just said, "not our problem," but that wouldn't be right. She took on significantly more work than necessary to do the right thing for these patients (and others, of course). I just wanted you all (Sue especially) to know what these patients have been saying. Thank you so much, Sue. These patients and I really appreciate it.