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Early in my nursing career, I cared for a patient who was a retired Supreme Court judge. Struggling to cope with a terminal illness, aggressive drug regimes had caused his eyesight to fail, and he had trouble reading. He also took out his frustration and anger on all the nurses. As the junior nurse, I was instructed to bathe him, but full of pride, he refused to be bathed by anyone, let alone someone fresh out of nursing school.
Each day, I came up with a new strategy for him to agree to a bath, each day I failed, and was aggressively dismissed from his room. Then one day, out of sheer frustration and guilt, I offered to read the newspaper to him. Surprisingly, he agreed, although continued to refuse any physical care.
I was so afraid that my nurse manager and nursing colleagues would think I was not providing the “proper” care for him that I pulled the curtains around his bed and closed the door, lest anyone should see me reading to him. After the third day of reading, the judge suggested I bathe him.
Thus began an extraordinary nurse-patient relationship. The ordinary task of reading the newspaper allowed me to show respect, to communicate, to earn the judge’s trust and in the end provide the care he needed. It taught me that as a nurse, I had to learn about the person, before I can help the patient.
At Baycrest, we find the solutions to challenges that are often not taught in a classroom. In a long-term care/complex continuing care, geriatric setting, nurses need to develop and rely on their critical thinking skills and applied knowledge every moment of every day. Complex, critical nursing care is delivered without the high-tech equipment found in acute care facilities to fall back on, and nurses must be confident to look at the whole person, pay attention to even the smallest of details, and have a great understanding for what is the best practice for each individual patient. This often means going above and beyond what is expected of them, and even the smallest gestures can mean the world of difference in nursing.
With the ongoing evolvement of gerontology, every day at Baycrest is exciting. The aging population is more sophisticated than it was a number of years ago. People are living longer but also suffer from more complex conditions. They are better educated and want to be included in the dialogue concerning their health issues. As part of the interdisciplinary team, nurses play a vital role in linking the client, families and other health care professionals together in the client care journey, and as a result we strive to be excellent communicators.
I recently heard of a particular nurse who sought the help of a colleague from another floor to help her communicate with a Russian-speaking patient whose condition had suddenly changed. This woman certainly could have been adequately treated in spite of the language barrier, however, being spoken to in her own language put her at ease. I commend both nurses for taking the extra time and effort to think from a client-centred perspective, enhancing the quality of care for this one patient, and for making practices like this the norm at Baycrest.
The strong presence of academics and research woven into the fabric of care, supports life long learning at Baycrest, making it a place where nurses can take their education and careers even further. By offering our nurses every opportunity to learn, they will be able to transfer the gift of knowledge into their day-to-day nursing practice – and feel rewarded by knowing that their improved skills have contributed to the personhood and dignity for every client they care for.
Joy Richards, VP of Nursing