Children's Hospitals Today - Winter 2023 - 10

ROUNDS / FIRST PERSON
Empowered by purpose
Five lessons that reveal the heart of the nursing profession.
BY PAMELA HUNT
2 | Genuine gestures
go a long way
When I was 8 years old, I stayed for nine
weeks at a hospital four hours away
from my home. Through the consent
for admission, the hospital performed
surgery on me without my mom knowing.
The recovery room nurse noticed
my mother lived far away, so she wrote
a letter updating her about the surgery.
The nurse never found out how meaningful
that letter was, but I will never
forget. I know how important it was to
my mom because I heard her tell that
story for years-and when she passed
away, I found the letter.
I
n my 40 years serving as a nurse,
I've experienced all kinds of clinical
difficulties, tough workplace demands,
and nearly unbearable hardships. Along
the way, one thing has always kept me
going: Whenever I think about the purpose
of nursing practice, I think about
what it looks like through the eyes of
the patient.
Diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid
arthritis (JRA) at 18 months, I have
spent more of my life as a patient than
as a nurse. By the time I was 20, I had
over 25 surgeries. I've lost sight in one
eye and lost enough blood giving birth
that I nearly died. I've sat bedside with
a loved one with 5.0 hemoglobin, uncertain
of his fate.
We know the difference we can make
in a patient's life-I know the difference
they've made in mine. It's an amazing
opportunity to be a part of their lives.
Seeing the sufferings of others is not a
curse of our profession; it's a blessing.
From my lifelong journey in and out of
hospitals, five lessons have stuck with
me and help ground me in this purpose.
1 | Taking time to talk can
make all the difference
As a pediatric patient, before the Joint
Commission ever told us it was important
to talk to the families, I knew it
was important that you talked to my
mom. With JRA, I spent weeks at a time
boarding at the closest children's hospital
75 miles from my home. My mother,
who raised me and my brother alone,
could only drive those 75 miles once
during the week and on the weekend.
The question she always asked when
she arrived was, " Who's your nurse? " It
made a huge difference to have nurses
who took time to talk to my mom and
explain to her how I was doing.
3 | Some patients want
to get personal
Sometimes in our practice, rightfully
so, we hesitate to tell people our names
or anything about our families. But as
an adolescent patient I spent most of
my summers in a surgical ward, and I
remembered the nursing staff sharing
about themselves and their families-
even small things like the birthday
party they had the weekend before. It
was very comforting. I often lived those
experiences through them. I'm thankful
they were free enough to share that with
me, so I knew what a normal childhood
looked like.
4 | Empathy matters
Of all my surgery experiences, nothing
was as painful as orthopedic recovery.
In my late teens, I had two inches taken
from my femur, and the rod pulled the
femur apart instead of fusing it. The surgeon
had me stand on it several times
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CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS TODAY Winter 2023
Children's Hospitals Today - Winter 2023

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