Reflection 29: Sarah

Dear reader, I consider myself to be in a very fortunate position. I am both a college teacher who stands in front of students’ day-after-day teaching Microsoft Office and Google Docs to health care wannabes. I am also a cancer survivor. So, I have observed both sides of the health care profession; what we teach and how my former students practice. What a window of opportunity I have been handed. These people who sit in front of me will be within a year working in a medical clinic, on a ward in a hospital, or perhaps an 'old folks' or extended care home. Perhaps they will be working in a hospice. They will be nursing the very people I spent some time with during and following my surgery.

This brings me to the point of this blog. The heath care textbooks that I am familiar with are long on protocols and short on caring, compassion and empathy; the feeling that you understand and share another person's experience and emotions. The importance of empathy is understated in the classroom. I am going to refer to the experience of Sarah to make my point.

You may recall Sarah. I introduced her in Chapter 22. She is an Inuit who lived all of her life in Cape Dorset, Nunavut (Over 2,000 km North West of Winnipeg). She is an Elder, respected in her community. She speaks very little English. I learned that the Winnipeg hospital I was in is responsible for NW Ontario, Manitoba and Nunavut. The spoken and written language is English. No French, even with a huge French-Canadian suburb nearby in Winnipeg called St. Boniface. Certainly, no Inuit is spoken or written. Even the Welcome booth is English Only. How welcoming is that!

Sarah is fighting breast cancer, so she ended up here. She survived a very complicated double mastectomy surgery. All of her breast tissues were removed as a way to treat the cancer. Now she is in the ward, in the bed beside mine...alone.

Please try to put your mind where hers is. She is alone. She is in a strange environment. She has great difficulty talking to and understand the people in uniforms that come and go from her bedside. Is she frustrated? Likely. Scared? Yes. Longing for companionship? Likely. Will her family visit? Not likely.

I lost an ear. It is quite another thing to lose two breasts. Breasts have a special significance in our society, especially for women. What is Sarah thinking about all of this? Would she like to talk to someone who will listen to her thoughts? Likely.

In the middle of the first night, I heard Sarah whimpering and softy crying.

During the time Sarah and I spent on the ward, we see the health care workers over and over again. After all, they are on a 10-day shift cycle. It is not the doctors we see most often. They come and go. I don't think I saw the same doctor on the ward more than two or three times even though rounds are done twice a day. Usually there is an entourage of residents with them, learning their protocols. Sarah and I will not see nurses either, unless it is an emergency. We see health care aides and nurse's aides. Again, and again.

I am suggesting that it is up to these health care workers to build a relationship with their patients. That is what I discovered as a patient. Nobody else will do it. Talk to us. Smile. Get to know us. Refer to us by name. Reader's Digest was correct when they publish Laughter is the best medicine in each issue. If the culture permits, sit down for a minute or two and look us in the eyes and dialogue. Show a little compassion and empathy. That is what Sarah and I are most looking for. Above all, don't simply be robotic going about fulfilling your protocols.