In March 2017, I transferred onto B5 at JMH to become the CNS, in part due to how impressed I was by the nursing staff's accomplishments when I interviewed for the position. As a staff member of B5, I have become consistently amazed at the ability of the B5 Nurses to provide such excellent daily care to all of the patients in and out of B5, despite a patient population that is often extremely challenging. There have been so many patient situations that these nurses have made huge impressions on, or gone above and beyond for, but one recent patient situation stands out.
Recently, we had a patient admitted to our floor who was Autistic, non-verbal, and had tendencies of hurting and injuring himself. This patient had already suffered innumerable atrocities in his life. Now he was going to have to be in our care for an indeterminate amount of time. The more that the staff of B5 learned about this patient and his history, the more they rallied together and set their minds on making him as safe as he could be and making his time with us as pleasant as it could be.
Due to the patient's injurious tendencies, he was placed on a safety observation 1:1 for his entire stay, which at one point we thought might be as long as 90 days, while the hospital searched for placement. Though this often wreaked havoc on our staffing, as well as staffing on other units, no one ever complained about sitting with this patient. The staff of B5, Nurses and CNAs alike, were nothing short of amazing in caring for this patient. They advocated to anyone who would listen to improve the care of the patient to try and prevent him from self-injuring, including making sure that dietary did not include metal utensils on his food tray, that when his cans of soda came up that whatever staff was on the 1:1 with him, they would put the drink in a cup and get rid of the can immediately. The CNAs slowly began to let him do more and more independent things such as showering, going to the bathroom, and walking in circles all day around the unit. More than one team member on B5 made sure he was showered, shaved, and he even got his hair cut by a staff member who has hairdressing experience prior to his evaluation for placement. The staff would all check on him at different times of the day, even when they did not have him in their assignment. When and if he would become agitated the staff would come together to try and soothe him.
It has really been awesome to watch and to see how much these amazing providers felt and empathized with this patient on a daily basis. So when the staff found out he was leaving yesterday, it was a bit bittersweet. They had finally broken through on so many levels with him. He was saying hi to everyone on the floor while he did his daily continuous walks on the floor. He was listening to music with staff, learning words and sounds, becoming easily re-directable and much more interactive. I truly believe that his ability to walk out of the hospital yesterday, following all commands, and get into a car with people who were effectively strangers to him, with no issues, no agitation, was directly due to the patience, love, sympathy and caring shown to him by the staff of B5. It was hard to believe that he was the same patient brought into the ER in a wheelchair, with no ability to care for himself, no effective communication, agitated and physically injurious and abusive to himself. To me, this is a prime example of the healing power of kindness, caring, and concern, shown by the staff of B5, towards all of their patients.