Blog #7: Acute Care Patient

Several weeks ago I met a very unique patient while shadowing a nurse in the Medical/Surgical unit. During the change of shift report, the nurses talked about a woman who had been in the hospital for weeks, and suffered from a long list of diagnoses. I was taken back by their abrasive attitudes regarding this particular patient whom they described as “lazy,” “needy” and “difficult.” After the report, the nurse and I entered the patient’s room to begin the morning assessment. I was surprised to find that the patient was very pleasant and conversational, and was very cooperative with both myself and the nurse. Throughout the day, I was in and out of the room doing vitals and assisting the nurse. Each time, the patient would become very talkative and eagerly engage us in conversation about the television shows, the meal, etc. I had many conversations with her, and I never saw the negative characteristics that the nurses attributed to her. After a month in the hospital with minimal visitors, I believe she was beginning to feel very socially isolated. It was very clear that she would benefit from some more one-on-one care, so the following week I chose her to be my patient in order to enable more contact and care time.
Throughout the two days in which she was my patient, I was in her room quite a bit, and she began to talk with me about her anxiety about her hospitalization and her strained relationship with her husband. I was able to assist her with her first shower in a month, and while I was situating her back in bed she expressed to me how poorly she felt about herself. I listened, and asked questions, but did not feel able to give her any counsel.

On the second day of working with her, I completed the second section of the Gordon’s Assessment. When I came to the content on role-relationship, coping-stress, sexuality and spirituality, the conversation took a difficult turn. She began to cry and was unable to answer some of the questions and merely shook her head. She seemed very relieved to be able to express some of her difficulties; she explained to me that she had no family or friends to rely on or talk to. Throughout our conversation, she disclosed her difficult circumstances and shared some personal struggles. I asked if she had communicated these things to anyone, and if she had spoken to a social worker about her living situation. She expressed that she had, and that her living situation was going to be different when she left acute care. She was very discouraged, but this potential change in living situations gave her a small degree of hope.