Mary Tarczewski
December 2018
Mary
Tarczewski
,
RN, BSN, CEN
Inpatient Oncology Unit
Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), Philadelphia

 

 

 

It was 6 pm at night and Mary was able to get security to let her into the concierge room to get balloons and she also found CTCA socks and other small gifts to give to the patient.
A patient arrived in OICC for evaluation for weakness and pain. This patient was a well-known patient to OICC and was very angry and upset because of her current condition. Mary sat and talked with the patient for an hour and had her laughing. Mary is a cancer survivor and talked to the patient about how she was an "angry cancer patient" once and totally understood her feelings. The patient had been told that day that hospice was the best alternative for her and the patient, after a long discussion with Mary, decided she would go to hospice. Mary then found out that her birthday was the next day. It was 6 pm at night and Mary was able to get security to let her into the concierge room to get balloons and she also found CTCA socks and other small gifts to give to the patient. When Mary returned with the balloons and gifts, she went into the patient's room while singing "Happy Birthday"! The patient started crying and while hugging Mary said she assumed her birthday was going to be forgotten. Unfortunately, the patient passed away 2 days later. I think this exemplifies what the "Mother Standard Care" represents and seeing the smile on a usually unhappy patient was priceless.