Thanks to member Marge Benham-Hutchins RN, PhD for sending us the link to this RWJF initiative
http://www.rwjf.org/qualityequality/product.jsp?id=74596&cid=XEM_A6199
I especially liked this principle:
This relationship [nurse-patient] is grounded in confidentiality, where the patient defines the scope of the confidentiality. Patients are the best and ultimate source of information about their health status and retain the right to make their own decisions about care.
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From my work in nursing I was privileged to “listen to the patient” as they experienced their pain, sorrow, fear.
One of the more insightful moments was during a session of SomatoEmotionalRelease work. The patient had been tested for ” everything” under the sun, came to me saying she’d been falling all the time and no one could explain to her medically why this was occuring. When she was on the therapy table a few minutes followed before she began to sob uncontrollably, telling me she never cried and couldn’t figure why this was happening to her!
I told her not to ask herself why this is happening just let yourself feel what you are feeling. She began to tell her story.
Several years ago her son died, he was one of five children she was raising and with a husband who of no assistance ( alcoholic) so she w totally responsible for everything. With this burden she’d never had time to grieve the loss of her child. We know sooner or later we have to deal with our demons and this was her bodies way of telling her.
When I read the above caption regarding the nurse- patient relationship I considered many cases but this was one that stands out as it literally put this lady back on her feet with never a further fall! She told her doctor that I cured her of her problem! But the truth of the matter is: it was a therapeutic relationship that failitatated the process of her recovery.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for any professional to be able to “listen” and in this case it was my trained hands that facilitated the process along with the sensitivity required to accomplish the process of unwinding the patient’s problem. The patient intuitively knew her problem, she just needed a helping hand to allow her permission to understand and bring to the memory surface that which was ailing her.