The Hospital as Foreign Country

Capture“A Foreign Place,” the February Reflections essay by Barbara Sosman, delves into one patient’s experience of the sometimes inscrutable, sometimes terrifying, sometimes humorous events and encounters in one small corner of a hospital.

Below are the first two paragraphs, but as always, it’s worth clicking through and reading the entire essay (the PDF version is best). This one would be particularly hard to summarize; it takes us to unexpected places.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

The flow of life and death in a hospital is mysterious, like the sound of a foreign language, and the mysteries that bring us here are profound. Stretched out in an unfamiliar hospital bed, I suppress realities, aware that tomorrow a scalpel will remove an enlarged node for a biopsy. The biopsy will show what I sense, a cellular chaos that threatens my life. Soon my disease will be presented like an offering. What will I do with it?

A room can become a universe and time there an infinity. This room is inhabited by women, of whom I am the youngest by decades  . . .

As always, comments are welcome.

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2016-11-21T13:05:27-05:00February 7th, 2014|nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|0 Comments
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Patient Decisions: When You’re Just Not Up to Making the Call

By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP, clinical managing editor

Photo by the author Photo by the author

For most patients and in most clinical situations, decision making is and should be a shared process between the patient and the clinician (and often the family). But there are some cases when we, expert clinicians versed in scientific and experiential knowledge, need to make a decision for the patient—not out of some paternalistic idea of our authority or superiority, but because the patient really wants or needs us to take on that burden.

I was six months pregnant with my second child. The pregnancy had gone smoothly, which was a blessing after having delivered my first child 10 weeks premature following two weeks spent in a tertiary care center. That pregnancy had been problematic from the beginning—early bleeding, and then a hemorrhage at five months, at which time they’d diagnosed me with placenta previa. It was one of those pregnancies where you were thankful for each additional day that brought you closer to the nine-month mark.

But this time, everything was going smoothly—no bleeding or cramps, an active baby that ultrasounds confirmed was growing well . . . until one morning in February, when I started with cramps that progressed to pain and a lot of pressure. An hour later, I was in the labor and […]

2016-11-21T13:05:37-05:00January 17th, 2014|career, nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|1 Comment
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Come Into My Parlor

Amy Getter, MS, RN, lives in Eugene, Oregon, where, in her own words, she “works with people with life-limiting illness who are enrolled in a hospice wherever they consider ‘home.’”

by Ramon Peco/via Flickr by Ramon Peco/via Flickr

I fondly remember becoming acquainted with my first “parlor,” in a 100-year-old home that my family moved into during my teen years. The walls were dressed in faded, peeling, paisley-patterned wallpaper and a tarnished brass chandelier hung from the ceiling. French doors closed it away from the rest of the living area, giving it a slightly mysterious aura. Far-off city lights blinked at me from elongated paned windows. I immediately claimed it as my bedroom.

The word parlor (derived from the verb “to speak”) may have first been used in medieval monasteries. An “outer parlor” was designated for receiving outsiders and attending to business needs and the “inner parlor” was for the monks’ private use. During the mid-19th century, formal parlors evolved and could be found in homes like the one my family lived in.

Weddings, funerals (being “laid out”), and other social events occurred in the parlor. Home businesses emerged (such as “funeral parlors”—offering an option for laying out the deceased in someone else’s home!). In recent years, care of the infirm and preparation of […]

2016-11-21T13:06:28-05:00September 27th, 2013|narratives, nursing perspective, nursing stories, patient experience|3 Comments
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Incomplete Combustion: Crohn’s, Motherhood, a New Normal

April Gibson is an essayist, poet, and ostomate. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Chicago State University. In her writing she seeks to address and renegotiate societal beliefs about motherhood, illness as alienation, beauty as a shell. Her work is published or forthcoming in Tidal Basin Review, Reverie, The New Sound, Aunt Chloe, AsUs and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago with her two sons. 

AprilGibsonTwenty-one days pass. I am a 90-pound bag of skin. Legs like peanut butter drapes thrown over femur bones, no muscle, no pronounced curve. A lover would look past me quickly in the street. I do not want these scars, or this strange body. I want to wear a red bikini. I want a kiss on my belly.

Three weeks felt like spans of small forevers. I didn’t believe my legs and arms were mine. My abdomen sunk to a cave, save for the rustling bag. My aunt hurled the word “unconscionable” on each visit, until the hospital knew her voice. My mother, grandmother, aunts, they stayed in mornings, my little brother stayed through late nights, nodding off once the drugs snatched my eyes to sleep. So many people, one could’ve mistaken my bed for a box. I can’t remember them all, or even all the days.

The nurses were there everyday, same ones. This is their wing. The doctors […]

2016-11-21T13:07:18-05:00June 14th, 2013|Nursing, patient experience, Patients|10 Comments
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‘The Nurse Who Changed My Treatment’

By Annalisa Ochoa, for AJN. All rights reserved. By Annalisa Ochoa, for AJN. All rights reserved.

Two years ago, when I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in the ED of a large urban hospital, I asked a nurse if I could borrow her cell phone. Without hesitation, she handed me her Blackberry—this simple gesture was a first indication of the solidarity I’d come to feel with the nurses whose kindnesses have helped me heal.

We think it’s important to sometimes include a patient perspective in our monthly Reflections essay. “The Nurse Who Changed My Treatment,” the June Reflections essay, is by Nila Webster, who writes about the gestures by nurses, the little kindnesses and words of wisdom and encouragement, that helped her during her treatment for lung cancer and made her feel seen and understood. The essay is free, and short, so please click the link and give it a read.—JM, senior editor

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2016-11-21T13:07:27-05:00May 29th, 2013|Nursing, patient experience|1 Comment
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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