During my first Clinical I have met a small number of patients as this is the beginning of my journey.  Here I would like to discuss a particular one that I had the pleasure of working with recently.  As I write I would like to express that specific details are going to be left out.  This is because part of the foundation of nursing is care, providing confidentiality and privacy is an important factor.  I feel an important way of making a difference with patients is seeing their perspective, to put ourselves in their shoes, and to connect.

My patient had been having a more difficult time, more than others I had encountered.  Initially being admitted for abdominal pain to find out that there was a tumor in the intestines.  Adenocarcinoma of the duodenum required immediate surgery.  This was a critical surgery, but unfortunately only a piece of this story.  During the surgery the duodenum was perforated and resulted in readmission after the patient had been discharged.  The readmission date fell on a major holiday and resulted in several more surgeries and several months of being hospitalized.

When I connected with this patient it was towards the hopeful discharge after this long and arduous medical journey.  My initial goal was to complete a bedside assessment, recording vitals, creating nursing goals, see what an ileostomy looked like, and how to care for them.  This interaction resulted in more, it was a time of deep patient/provider connection. 

The patient’s closest family member was there along with my clinical partner.  This became a discussion of their life while performing our tasks.  While I was applying foot cream to the very dry cracking skin, we discussed life goals and things to look forward to when they were discharged.  We talked about restaurants and food that they love.  We delved into their home life and how they felt about navigating their living situation with their current impairments.  This got into how their home was left completely set up for the holiday that was abruptly disrupted.  Taking these considerations about their life and turning it into obtainable goals all while performing assessments was to say the least a moment. 

In this moment for the patient during their lengthy and challenging hospitalization I hope that this created a sense of care that the patient appreciated.  While being hands on and providing for this patient we were able to take a physical assessment and allow it to transform into an emotional care moment.   Providing goals and a vision of things to look forward to, all while being realistic, I feel was the care that the patient needed at that time.  Our assessment, taking vitals, and completing our assignment was important for our professional and educational growth.  The real difference that we made that day was looking outside of our assignment and providing the care and connecting with our patient.