Studies continue to show that nurses need care, too. However, finding or acknowledging a need for such care can be a challenge in a society that upholds an attitude of bravado among medical caregivers. Wellness programs for medical staff, including one developing at Stanford, are slowly incorporating employee support. “We need to teach resiliency, perspective and balance,” says Stanford Hospital’s Chief of Surgery, Tom Krummel.
“In Schwartz Rounds, you find counsel in everyone else,” says Julie Latini, patient care manager of the hematology/oncology unit at Stanford Hospital. “We get insight on how to cope better, ways to manage process with patients.”
During Schwartz Rounds, doctors and nurses have the opportunity to talk confidentially, make requests, and ask questions significant to all in attendance. “We’re talking about how to make the unbearable bearable,” says Kavitha Ramchandran, MD, medical director of Stanford’s Supportive Oncology program. “We want to come up with new strategies to care for ourselves better so we can care for our patients better. This is a chance for us to be open and honest with one another, to talk about the human impact on us of caring for patients with devastating illnesses.”
The current Schwartz Rounds at Stanford Hospital accommodate Cancer Center physicians and nurses working with cancer patients. However, according to Sridhar Seshadri, the hospital’s vice president in charge of the Cancer Center, “We hope many other areas will adopt these rounds as well.”
Source: Stanford Hospital.
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