September 2019
Aleks
McWhirter
,
RN
Cardiovascular ICU
UPMC Passavant
Cranberry Township
,
PA
United States
Aleks was caring for one of our post open-heart patients who was recovering quite nicely and on post-op day #4. This patient had also happened to be a priest. Across the hall, she was also caring for a patient/family with whom she had built up a great rapport with. This patient, unfortunately, was not doing well. It was decided to make her Comfort Measures, as she wanted to be made comfortable in her final days. Since she had built a bond with this patient/family, she knew that they were very religious. She attempted to get a priest in for anointing of the sick/last rights, but due to this occurring over the Fourth of July Holiday, she and the patient's family were unsuccessful. The patient ended up transferring to one of the CMO rooms on the sixth floor, and she took it very hard, feeling she did her patient a disservice as well as the family. Her shift was over at three the day the patient transferred. When she was going to leave, she stopped in her open-heart patient's room and asked if he could pray for one of her patients who was at the end of their life. The patient asked if he could do one better and if she could help arrange for him to go up and pray with the patient and family. She coordinated all this through our CT surgery team as well as asked the family's permission to bring this patient/priest up to pray with them. She stayed after her shift off-duty to help coordinate this all and wheeled the patient/priest up to the sixth floor to her previous CMO patient/family. The CMO patient/family were extremely grateful for this act of kindness as was our patient/priest who got to aide others. This was all made possible because of her and really shows what it means to go above and beyond for others.