To all my peers at Unity...Thank you so much!
It took me a little time to process my thoughts, and by then
my E-mail was closed and I didn't want to leave it unsaid, so...
Thank you Aimee and Beth and everyone who contributed! I
can't begin to express the gratitude that I felt with your generous gifts and
your displays of recognition and appreciation at my retirement party! The gifts
were PERFECT! I was truly overwhelmed! Thank you so much for your kindness,
your presence, your hugs and your good-wishes!
Many of you expressed surprise and some were saddened with
my decision to suddenly retire as I was so intensely engaged in efforts to
influence and improve our PES environment. If you were counting on me to be
there, I apologize.
Most of you also know that these last few months were very
challenging for me, (as they were for all of us after the OHA audit), and how the OHA bump in the road abruptly
shifted our focus. From a clear focus of stabilizing our city's most vulnerable
patients... To one of demonstrating compliance with the ever so tedious task of searching for the correct locations in the randomly organized, multifaceted non-emergent computer charting system to record our redundancies. Although I am certain that the data miners are thrilled. This was something I had hoped
to avoid by leaving floor nursing.
I want you all to know that through this time I personally
found everyone in the nursing field at Unity, including my manager extremely supportive,
both personally and professionally. Among those I especially appreciated due to
their timely actions were each of my charge nurses, Kevin, Sarah, Elisha, Jeff
and Jen. Thank you Jen for normalizing
the idea of filling in every box, even when COMPLETELY REDUNDANT. I needed that
to survive. (It still makes no sense to me)
Thank you Kevin for your unique openness and friendship and
for helping me to see the big picture in how to get organized on the EPIC
system. I appreciated your kindness and persistence in checking my efforts and
offering respectful and supportive encouragement. I appreciated your
willingness to trust me as we team worked with many of our most difficult
people.
Thank you Elisha, Sarah and Jeff for standing up for me specifically
and for all of us Nurses in general as you responded to situations where Corrective Actions were taken against acceptable
but uniquely prioritized nursing practices. Good Job on seeking and obtaining
greater representation! You guys are amazing! This is the first time that I have heard of a group
unionizing to obtain greater freedom to pursue excellence in serving their
community! Usually it is about wages or vacations! I hope
that the Legacy Organization realizes what an asset they have in you and
listens carefully to your insights in the future!
I also want to thank you Aimee. I
appreciate the confidence and faith you placed in me. I am grateful for
the opportunity to grow and adapt as we opened the PES and as you know I
enjoyed thinking on my feet and applying my skills in the ever changing ED
setting. It was a challenge that I feel we all grew into. Thank you for
your efforts in helping me to overcome the obstacles that came up, and the
graciousness that you extended in our meetings. I appreciate the times that you
went to bat for me when there were misunderstandings with medical staff.
So what was the problem?
And, why did I decide to leave? ...
In my practice, my Nursing
Goal in the PES was simple. Of course there is safety and labs and meds and all
the rest... and then there was my patient stabilization goal...
"To connect
with, and to identify and explore a reasonable Hope."
which could be as simple as
(fully enjoying)... smell, feel, taste, and
describe the effect,
of a cup of tea together,
(i.e.... grounding before directing or problem solving)
which could be as simple as
(fully enjoying)... smell, feel, taste, and
describe the effect,
of a cup of tea together,
(i.e.... grounding before directing or problem solving)
To be honest, with the busy-ness of the additional computer
tasks I found that I was no longer taking the time to accomplish my stabilization
goal. I was not consistently doing both. I could do one, or the other, but often
I could not do both.
I also found that doing med audits for four months placed me
under suspicion with our medical staff and their confidence in my actions and assessments
seemed to have evaporated. Eventually my actions, statements and decisions were
being questioned by some on a near daily basis. I was even accused of lying
about the side effects I observed. As you can imagine, this saddened me. But later when
the patient, expressed great relief and gratitude for the effectiveness of the medication I (wrongly) gave. I was very glad I followed my training and instincts. Instincts which also led to my leaving.
Since the options in life do not include Do-Over's, and I had
just spent four months proving myself only to have a very negative
outcome, it seemed best to leave and reap the benefits of my other investments.
(Did I tell you I
just bought a new windsurf board?)
So I end with a suggestion on how to have greater unity at
Unity.
Please be patient as I try to illustrate.
The culture at my previous hospital was influenced by a
mission statement..., "To demonstrate in human form the healing ministry
of Jesus Christ." which was often referred to as, "SACRED WORK."
This mission attempts to capture ideas of "moral truth," like
healing, comfort, compassion and patience, e.t.c...
Legacy's culture which extends to Unity, promotes ideals of,
Social Justice, which are also held by many in a sense as, "SACRED
WORK," and presented in the statement... "ABOVE ALL, we will do THE RIGHT THING." The status of sacredness can be seen in our fervency to display reverent social etiquette toward marginalized groups, much like the reverent
speech displayed in many formal prayers. The "moral truth" extended... Intense
Fairness.
Whether every individual in the organization personally holds either of these messages as sacred was actually unimportant. In reality they
serve as identity markers to rallying forms of focused altruistic effort.
Unfortunately it is also the nature of humanity to harbor mistrust and form
judgments and then reward or punish along perceived lines of
allegiance. I saw this at AMC toward a peer who jokingly coined the phrase,
"badventist," and I believe this happens often at Unity toward anyone
that does not show enough zeal in their displays of reverence toward cultural change.
Is it possible to humbly and respectfully disagree on some perceptions of morality? Or do we all have to be beaten into the same mold? The Following TED talk is very good on this topic.
If you think that the main point of the talk is to create punishments that will be effective in bringing greater fairness, then you are still lost in the Matrix.
The challenging question is...
Setting aside his personal tastes on religious systems and going back to the data. Is it better to function on two channels and ignore the other three, or recognize and UTILIZE ALL FIVE and WEIGHT THEM PROPERLY on a MOMENT TO MOMENT basis?
Which leads to my final suggestion, to bring greater fairness and unity to Unity...
Create a hybrid Mission Statement like...
"Above All, We Will Respect Human
Dignity,
As Our Sacred Duty."
We will humbly respect...
The dignity of our patients, their families and their
circumstance, and not ridicule.
The dignity of our peers, providers, managers, even if we
disagree strongly with them on what we feel are very important issues
The dignity of those who serve among us in other capacities.
Hopefully this would result in a refrain from gossip and
derision and segregating from, or singling out those who hold differing values. If we were to extend the benefit of graciousness rather
then scolding or judgmental criticisms and avoid punitive action toward those who hold differing opinions. This would also be a great step toward, "Intense Fairness."
Again, Thank you ALL and May God
Bless us each and every one!
