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Vol. 22, No. 11, NOVEMBER 2005
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Listening a Vital Part of Treating Hurricane Victims
Member's on the Move
Listening a Vital Part of Treating Hurricane Victims
Editor’s note: Hundreds of nurses and other practitioners readily responded to the need for healthcare services in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Among them was Denise Buonocore, RN, MSN, CCRN, APRN-BC, an acute care nurse practitioner at the Heart Institute at Bridgeport Hospital, Bridgeport, Conn., and a member of the AACN Board of Directors. Following is her story. Recognizing that there are many such stories and that the telling of these stories can be an important part of the healing process, AACN has set up an area on its Web site for those involved to post their stories and to read others. If you would like to tell your story, visit www.aacn.org > The Hurricanes: Share Your Stories.
By Denise Buonocore, RN, MSN, CCRN, APRN-BC
They want to tell their stories. Although they are the survivors of the worst hurricane to hit the United States, the stories they tell are not of the ferocious storm but of the harrowing escape from the aftermath. Although they come to have their medical ailments treated, my most important job is to hear their stories.
Caring presence is the most important skill I bring to the makeshift exam room. Experienced from my mission work in developing countries in re-creating a medical history when there is no record, I struggle not with the treatment of their medical problems but with the emotions in me when I hear their stories. I hold their hands and cry with them when I hear stories of tragedy and personal loss and rejoice with them around the victories of being reunited with their family.
Hurricane Katrina seemed to bring our nation to its knees. Watching TV with horror at the plight of our fellow man and the tragedy in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, I kept thinking and praying that help was on the way. I, like many other people, donated to charities that would support the cause. Days of watching the TV news with little being done spurred me on to find a way to help in addition to the monetary donation I made. So when the opportunity came, I answered. Alerted to a call for medical help in Houston to assist in treating the survivors housed there, I volunteered. I went to Houston to help in any way I could. I was on what would become an unbelievable experience in human kindness. The people of Houston and other cities and towns that took in survivors of this storm are the real heroes, as are the dedicated medical professionals who stayed amid the stricken areas to treat their patients.
While I worked in the makeshift medical center in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, I was impressed with the skill and compassion and respect for human dignity on the part of my fellow volunteers. I was equally impressed with the fighting spirit and the faith in mankind of the survivors, despite what they had endured.
So, for a week, I treated wounds, extremely high blood pressure and blood glucoses, and I listened to the survivors tell their stories. Most of the people I saw had been without medications since prior to the storm. We had to be particularly vigilant for potentially contagious diseases. Diarrhea for more than a day or two or a suspicious rash could send a survivor to the quarantined area of the convention center until fully treated to limit the spread to other survivors.
Much like my previous medical mission work, I had to re-create a person’s medical history without the assistance of medical records to be able to treat them. I worked hard to keep these interactions as nonthreatening for the survivors as possible. I would tell them not to worry, that we would get through this and work out a possible solution, even if they only knew they took a blue pill for their blood pressure and a pink pill for their heart.
The work was slow going. With no quotas to fill I was able to spend the time needed that each patient required. I allowed them to talk and share their stories. I shared more laughter and more tears with my patients in that week than I probably have in a lifetime of nursing. My quest was to make at least this one thing for them go right, even in a sea of wrongs.
Volunteers came from all over the United States. We all contributed our own unique skills and expertise; the central desk area of our makeshift ER/medical clinic was always abuzz as we consulted each other on the best way to handle a difficult case. We all had different specialties. I had no difficulty finding a pulmonologist for an immediate consult for a young asthmatic woman with a suspected case of pneumonia, as one was working with us right around the corner.
Finding a way to follow up on their care was one of the biggest challenges each day, because we knew the clinic would only be open for a short period of time. There were many obstacles to finding the best way to treat a patient and family. Sometimes the highest priority was finding the person a place to live, as was the case with a young mother six days post-partum with a newborn and two other children under the age of 4 living on cots in the middle of the convention center. She was concerned about her incision and left with a caseworker to find a place to live. Small gestures like this became the victories of the day.
I am in awe of our fellow Houston colleagues, nurses, physicians and other volunteers who were able to mobilize and set up this incredible mobile medical facility with a few hours notice to care for the survivors arriving from New Orleans. We had lab, X-ray, a fully equipped central supply and a pharmacy on site as well as public health workers for vaccination, registrars for schools, eye testing and glasses for those in need, mental health workers for crisis intervention and even a podiatrist. On site was also the EMS to help us triage patients who needed to be transported to the hospital. We used this service quite often for the most serious cases. This came in handy for one young man who came in with chest pain having an acute anterior wall MI. Although the majority of us had never worked together prior to this humanitarian effort, we had that young man on his way to a local cardiac hospital with antiplatelets, beta-blockers and nitro on board within 30 minutes of his arrival.
Although the physical work was not any more challenging than a day in my day job, the emotional work was quite taxing. It helped to have my fellow AACN colleagues from Houston to assist and decompress together. I realize the recovery from something of this magnitude will go on for a long time, and I plan to continue to be a part of the efforts in some way. My husband asked me one of the first days I was in Houston (as he does most days when I get home from work), "So did you save any lives today?" My answer was, “I know I helped make a bad experience just a little bit better for the people I saw today … I'd call it a good day. I hope to be as successful tomorrow.”
AACN members were among volunteeers helping to car
for Hurricane Katrina survivors in Houston. Shown here
are (from left) Barbara McLean of Atlanta, Ga.; Denise
Buonocore of Bridgeport, Conn., and Delmar Imperial-Aubin,
president-elect of the Houston Chapter.
An area of the George R. Brown Convention Center
in Houston, Texas, was converted to an adult medicine
clinic to accommodate survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
Member's on the Move
Honors
Ramón Lavandero, RN, MSN, MA, FAAN, director of Strategic Alliances and Development at AACN, was presented the Victoria Champion “Boundary Spanning” Award by the Indiana University School of Nursing, Indianapolis. The award honors a healthcare professional who has excelled in building strong collaborative relationships and creating connections between nursing and other disciplines.
Professional
Sally Willis Schoeffel, RN, MSN, retired in August as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, after 21 years of service. She currently is an adjunct nursing instructor at Our Lady of the Lake College, Shreveport, La.
Mairead Hickey, RN. PhD, FAHA, has accepted the position of chief nursing officer and senior vice president of Patient Care Services at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Mass. She is a past member of both the AACN Board of Directors and the AACN Certification Corporation Board of Directors.
Rhonda Board, RN, PhD, CCRN, was promoted to associate professor at the Northeastern University School of Nursing, Boston, Mass.
Andrea Kline, RN, MS, PCCNP, CPNP-AC, CCRN, has been selected as a consultant for the FDA Anesthesiology and Respiratory Devices Panel. Her term continues through 2008. Kline is a pediatric critical care nurse practitioner in the pediatric ICU at Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Ill.
Academic
Rose Rupert, RN, BSN, MS, CNS, CCRN, CRNI, received her master of science degree as a clinical nurse specialist in adult medical-surgical from York College of Pennsylvania. She is
coordinator of the Vascular Management Department at Memorial Hospital, York, Pa.
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