September 2020 | Issue 1 | Page 4
Meet My Loved One : A Human Connection by Ronit Elk , PhD
It was March 2020 and the world had changed ; the COVID epidemic had made its way to Birmingham , AL . Overnight , family members , usually such an integral part of the care of their loved ones , could no longer visit them , not in nursing homes nor in hospitals . Contact was cut off . Normal human contact and connection that families and friends provide to a patient in a nursing home or hospital was now absent .
The daughter of a 94-year old man who had recently moved into a nursing home , called Dr . Rodney Tucker , Director of the Center for Palliative and Supportive Care ( Center ) at UAB , who had recently cared for her father , and expressed her anxiety about not being able to visit him , nor ensure that he had the care he needed . Dr . Tucker suggested she write to the nursing home and tell them some unique things about her father ( e . g ., he loves ice-cream and Animal Planet ), and how to best care for him ( e . g ., don ’ t make him wear his oxygen if the canula made him uncomfortable ), and post this on his wall . When staff members saw this note they understood the patient better and were able to provide him with the care his family wanted for him . Dr . Tucker realized that the separation of loved ones from their families would become a significant problem for so many . He reached out to Dr . Sylvia Huang , the Director of Psychology and Counseling Programs at the Center , and asked her to help create a tool that had two goals : The first was to humanize the patient by getting to know his / her personality , and the second was to understand how the family wanted the medical team to care for him / her . Although Drs . Tucker and Huang emphasized the importance of humanizing the patient , they recognized how pressed for time clinicians are , so that a long form would not be feasible . Dr . Huang got input from nurses , social workers and caregivers , and spent several hours creating the form . “ We also wanted to recognize the emotional distress and suffering caused by the visitor restriction policy and emphasized to the family that we wanted to partner with them ” she says , “ I always tell the family that we cannot
Rodney Tucker , MD , MMM imagine how difficult it is not to be at bedside with your loved one because of the restrictions , so we want to do our best to provide the same level of care as if you were at the bedside .” On
March 26th , 2020 , Meet My Loved One , was launched .
Sylvia Huang , PhD
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