Gratitude

We don't get a lot of feedback in the ICU from our patients. When they come in, they are really sick, in extremis, and we get little appreciation when we run around sticking needles, tubes, and lines into them. Their families, scared to hear our dire news, have to sit and process. When they get better, they leave the ICU and go to the floor, their beds taken up by patients equally ill. There isn't a real time and place to hear out what our patients think and experience. But occasionally, we'll here from a patient who does well and send their regards. Here's an email excerpt I got for a patient I took care of:

"During the two episodes of ill health which brought me to Stanford Hospital, I've spent about two weeks being examined, analyzed and scientifically scrutinized. Observing those initial attributes a patient forgets that the motivation behind those actions are compassion and concern. I suspect normally the focus of most people who are injured and suffering so much personal, physical, and emotional pain and distress aren't considering how much compassion and concern with which they are being treated, and don't recognize either of those character traits while experiencing those treatments. All understandable. But both those concepts are the cornerstone of the system we inadvertently fall into when injured, and is the foundation of the motivation behind the system and all the processes and procedures which ultimately follow."

It is a beautifully written email and a wonderful reminder to us of our ultimate reasons for taking care of patients. I don't need thanks or appreciation from my patients, but it certainly warms my heart when I do hear it.