Before she started working with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta last year, Ruthie lived overseas in China for a couple of years. When she first started at CHOA, she wasn't sure if her time in China would really impact her nursing practice now that she was back in the United States.
One night, she was assigned a shy 6-year-old patient from China and it happened to be on the eve of Chinese New Year, which is as big of a deal in China as Christmas Day is in America. The patient was sad to be in the hospital on such a big holiday for her family. When Ruthie first went into the little girl's room, the patient was too shy to talk to her, but she was able to engage her in Chinese and it turned out that Ruthie's Chinese name was the same name as her best friend! This warmed her up quickly to Ruthie and put her at ease as she assessed her and gave her medications and went through the plan of care with her Dad (in English).
When Ruthie realized the significance of the date she started thinking. A tradition for the Chinese New Year is to give children Red Envelopes filled with money and other fun things in them. Later that night when she had time, Ruthie found some red construction paper and decorated it with traditional Chinese symbols and filled it with stickers and a get well soon card. Before leaving in the morning, she placed it on the whiteboard in the patient's room so that when the patient woke up, she'd have something fun to open.
Ruthie wasn't sure if she would ever know the outcome as she wasn't able to see her receive the red envelope, but when she came back to work the family had filled out a "Catch Me at My Best" for her. They expressed thanks and excitement for taking the time to make their daughter feel welcome and to help her celebrate even when she had to be in the hospital. According to Ruthie, this really made her happy to know that she had made a positive impact on this child's stay with us.