As a nurse, I loved to work 3-11 shifts. One of the tasks we were responsible for was PM care. PM care was the time when we would help our patients get ready for bed. When I worked in ICU, many of our patients were sedated or unconscious, so PM care was when we would bathe them, do skin care, and change the sheets, so they were clean and comfortable.
For the patients who were awake and alert, PM Care was a time to talk to them and learn about their lives and their families and gain new insights into who they were. It was a time to get to know our patients.
Today, I was with a patient and his son as the father was getting signed up for Hospice Care. I have learned over time by observing them, that the son and the father have a special relationship. They are very much alike in their demeanor and actions. My patient is a quiet man, but he is very thoughtful when he talks.
As we were leaving the facility, the son told me his father was a writer. He wrote for a newspaper and won many awards. I had never known that about my patient, and it opened my eyes to a new aspect to my patient. .
As I reflected on the experience, I left like I had done completed PM care for my shift….it was nice taking the time to learn something about my patient and the life he had lived.
Please share with me ways you have learned things about your patients that opened your eyes to who they are – other then a patient.
Leave a comment in the comment box, or email me directly at allewellyn48@gmai.come
Have a good week!
What an insightful and inspiring article. It is so good to try to see the person behind the “patient”. Thank you for your compassionate care.
Having worked evening early on in my professional career, I recall and appreciate the value of PM care. It created a special time for bonding with our patients. Later on in my work as a home care nurse there were also many bonding opportunities where I saw many patients in the reality of their lives–who they are and who they were. For me, Home Care created a different and special kind of bonding, it’s own brand of PM CARE.
When my children were young, working the 3-11 shift was the best way for my husband and I to juggle child care. Like you, Anne, I loved this shift and a big part of was because I was able to learn much more about the patient by performing those gentle and comforting acts to help the patient rest and hopefully obtain a full nights sleep (something that rarely happened.) I recall one woman who was dying of cancer and while rubbing her back with lotion to help relax her, she told me how estranged she was from her only surviving family member. I asked if she wanted me to call her daughter and to make a long story short, the family reconciled before my patient died. Comforting patients was a big part of nursing care in the 60’s and 70’s and does not seem to exist anymore, sadly.
Nursing often allows us to be involved in the most intimate and vulnerable times of a person’s life. That’s so powerful and often so rewarding. What a wonderful act of kindness Maureen! To facilitate the reconciliation of a dying Mother and daughter has to be one of the outstanding moments of your life.
Bravo!
Very insightful, Anne! Thanks for sharing!