The end of the year is busy time at the hospital. Ok, the whole year is busy, but the last three months are especially frenetic. We have lots of public and employee events/programs going on and everyone has projects that need to be wrapped up before the calendar switches over. It's hectic, but energizing.
In the last few weeks I've seen some stuff. Some things man... I've seen 2,500 people help our hospital raise more than three tons of food for those in need. I've seen our employees make sure children in our community, and our employee family, have the school supplies they need to start the year out right, a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with their family and overflowing sacks (that's plural, and in most cases 4-5) of gifts for Christmas.
I've heard stories about our employees helping patients achieve life dreams, during their final weeks of life. I've seen staff members reunite with families of of patients who died this year, or last year, or many years ago. Families of babies that were never born, or only lived a matter of hours. I've seen these skilled, competent and compassionate caregivers completely heartbroken. Reduced to their most human and authentic form by their own futility in the face of life as we know it. Because sometimes the very best any of us can do just isn't enough. I've heard the names read one by one. I've been flattened by the freight train of realization that we play a key part in what may be at the very least a defining moment and what often is the worst day of someone's life.
And when I say "we" I'm not talking about me. I may help someone find their way to a lab or the doctor's office. But I'm not the one delivering that news. The one clocking in every day and holding human life in my hands. The one living in the world of crisis, pain and fear. Soldiering on day after day, because no matter if the the last battle was a victory or a defeat, there's another to be fought right now.
I've seen families reunite with doctors, nurses, therapists, chaplains and staff members who cared for someone they love and lost. Someone who made that person their whole world, and somehow in that awful and unfair moment they found a way to give a bit more of themselves to help those around them. Because even though they may see this kind of thing every day, even though the circumstance may be emotionless science, an unavoidable algorithm, something more comfortably compartmentalized and dealt with rationally, that's not how the heroes I work with do their job. They don't just give their education, skills and knowledge. They pour their whole heart into the people who honor our hospital with their presence.
They care. They allow what happens to patients to affect them, because they choose to let it matter. It matters beyond an outcome, beyond symptoms, beyond quality measures and reimbursement rates. It matters because this is a person. Someone's child, spouse, parent, sibling, friend.
I've also heard about other deaths. Deaths that never happened. A few lives saved each year by making sure we have zero hospital acquired central line infections. None. A few more by making sure no patients develop pneumonia while in the hospital. More by making sure every patient that is brought to our Cath lab has their arteries reopened within 70 minutes of arriving. The industry standard for excellence is 90 minutes, but is "good enough" good enough when you are pacing nervously in the waiting room? When seconds matter our team springs into action with their hard-wired protocols for addressing stroke symptoms.
Because each person that leaves our campus and goes home is a victory. Each hysterical attempt to to somehow fit the stroller, car seat, diaper bag(s) gift bags and the most overwhelming balloon bouquet into the car for the very first time is a victory for all of us. Every time eyes open and it's easier to breathe, less painful to move or a deadly force is no longer alive within a person's body it's a triumph we all share.
Sometimes my job feels stressful and overwhelming. There are so many things that need to get done, so many conversations to be had, so many meetings to attend, so many events to coordinate and support it seems like an exercise in tedium and futility.
Then I step back for a moment and think about what's going on around me, and what I'm actually doing. I realize that I get to come to work every day with superheroes. A team unmatched in talent and compassion. I get to witness the very best of the human spirit on display. I have the supreme honor to be there for no other reason than to cheer them on each day, and tell their stories to as may people as possible.
So now you know.
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