Carole Lauren is a 44 year old mother of two, a wife, and a school teacher by profession. Her story began 21 months ago when she had a cerebrovascular accident that left her hemiplegic. Almost two years passed since the event. Carole regained most of the lost function in her left leg, ankle, and foot. However, she still has limited function in her left arm and hand. She also has difficulty organizing her thoughts and read her message from a paper. Her story is about a journey through the health care system. Since the stroke, Carole has received care from multiple healthcare providers - some were better than others and she met many great people, but her overall care experience “could have been much better in many different ways”. …show more content…
Working in an environment where sickness and death are always around the corner can make a lot of people numb. Simple human emotions - anger, envy, competitiveness - get into play every day regardless of one’s education or position. Some can put them aside and some cannot. Was this patient just that unfortunate? Perhaps. Perhaps her therapists were not funded to talk to each other but could they have talked anyways? Yes, but they chose not to. And to me, that is against the medical ethical principles because it compromises patient care. This was just one of the examples. What about the primary care physician who doesn’t get to see patient’s chart and doesn’t know what to do with the patient after the discharge. I hope she learnt from Carol’s experience. I was glad to learn that Carol educated herself and was able to become her own “care coordinator”. What if she didn’t? She could have been left hemiplegic for life. She would have become a burden on her family and on the healthcare system. I realize that my take on this story is bitter, and it is mostly because I hear the same story over and over again. Even I, myself, had a similar experience and felt I was just a chart number. Sure, most care providers were competent but there was no team work. Everyone was great on their own but uncoordinated and uncooperative. I understand that long hours and understaffing issues are a common problem, but the relationship between the
Also, whether there was collaboration between facility members to ensure quality care. More issues would be whether examinations were thorough and tests were analyzed before discharging the patient. The moral issue at stake in this case is if the facility believes they did the right thing or not. For example, the physician could not recall what instructions he gave Kelly’s father, but he did nothing to clarify the situation, he just gave the father a business card as if that would suffice for his inability to remember the instructions he assigned (Pozgar,
Beneficence compounded by nurse-physician communication created ethical problems in this case. Mainly, Joanna’s assessment of Mrs. Kelly being ignored by the resident physician and the nursing supervisor. Joanna worked within the scope and standards of practice, she assessed, evaluated, and monitored her patient’s condition. She then reported her findings to the resident twice, and also sought nursing support from her shift supervisor. After Joanna’s first call to the resident, and her continued concern she needed to advocate in a proactive manner. Continuing her assessment of Mrs. Kelly to include palpation and auscultation could have offered additional clinical information enabling her to articulate the problem to the resident and nursing supervisor.
Many people these days take their health and body for granted. Imagine losing the ability to walk suddenly due to an accident or a disease. This is exactly what had happened to Nancy Mairs, author of the essay “On Being a Cripple.” She herself had lost her ability to walk normally when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis or MS, a chronic disease that attacks the central nervous system. Her essay talks about her life and dealing with MS. The purpose of the essay is to show how being crippled affects your life and how to stay positive and deal with it.
People with disabilities are not completely gone. They are still there and have a mind of their own. They feel emotions and sometimes have a more complex mind than others. Two authors help enlighten this idea that disabled people are much more than helpless bodies. Both Christy Brown and Jean-Dominique Bauby perfectly illustrate their lives and what it is like to be disabled, and they prove by their stories that they think and feel, and can even develop enough to share what they feel with the world. My Left Foot is about the journey of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy. His entire life he was labeled as a loss cause by doctor after doctor, but his mom never gave up hope. Slowly, he started showing signs of development by random movements responding to certain situations. In the end he ends up being able to communicate with his left foot. The next story, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is about an individual who suffered a stroke at the age of 43, leaving him paralyzed, only able to blink his left eye as communication. He develops his own alphabet inspired by the French language in order to exchange conversations with others. His thoughts in the story jump from the present, him currently disabled, and the past, when he was not. Both memoirs, with very different stories, show the lives of two individuals that are not like others. One who had their disability since birth, and the other who obtained one after a tragic event. In My Left Foot by Christy Brown and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, both authors use characterization to show readers the struggles of disabled people and help them understand that just because they can’t use motions such as hand gestures to express how they feel, doesn’t mean that they don’t think and feel.
Gilda also witnessed her mother struggle with cancer, and watched the Hospice nurses and staff provide care and support to Gilda’s mother and family, and ultimately decided that she too wanted to assist people cope with grief and loss and the end of process. On the other hand, both Michele and Pamela started their careers in the medical field outside of Hospice and found their way to the Hospice program with time and experience. Pamela believed that there was a need for LPN is within the Hospice agency, and started her work as an LPN working with Hospice patients in their homes. Michele started as a nurse when she started working for Hospice and after a few years, she was promoted to a care provider liaison, working with and advocating on behalf of Hospice patients who reside in assisted living facilities.
Betty had a fall a few weeks after her diagnoses. It took a fall and an admission to hospital for the health and social care team to realise they were struggling. Finally, workers involved Betty and Arthur fully in giving information about Betty’s condition and possible sources of help e.g. meals on wheels, luncheon club, day care etc. This enabled Betty to be fully included in as plan of care which enabled her to
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2015) every year there are 800,000 individuals who have strokes. There are 610,000 first time cases and 185,000 recurring stroke individuals. It is important for caregivers to note that the increased risk of another stroke is higher after the first (CDC, 2015). It is also critical for the caregiver to ask questions of the physician, such as what aspects physiologically and emotionally have been affected and treatments
Although originally written in 1983, The Managed Heart is still an up to date look at an interesting concept: combining emotional feelings with the work one does. At first glance, the notion that emotions may have an impact on one’s work environment seems almost a non-issue. However, Hochschild is not saying that; rather, Hochschild looks at the effect of emotions in the workplace, but also the interaction of those emotions with the work itself. The author’s interest in this topic began at an early age, 12, when she recounts an event in her life: her parents, part of the U.S. Foreign Service, entertained diplomats. Hochschild describes the question that came to her mind as she looked up into the smiling face of a
Disabilities within the characters of “The Life You Save May be Your Own” by Flanner O’Connor
Stroke is a leading health care problem worldwide; ‘living with stroke’ is a real challenge both stroke survivors and their caregivers face.
The loss of control experienced by Ann may have had an impact on the time it took to progress through the stages. Involving Ann in the decision making, discussing options and offering continuity of care would help make the transition from her home environment easier.
Afflicted by left-side Hemiplegia and bound to a wheelchair, my grandmother’s life was not one of ease. By the time I was born she had been living with her barriers for thirty years and had learned to compensate due to her astounding will and surrounding subpar medical practices. As a child I thought nothing of the fact that my grandmother was stricken with paralysis until I witnessed her take a turn for the worse and suffer another hemorrhagic stroke. Her recovery was long and arduous yet, it was a blessing that brought us closer together and nudged me down the path of Occupational Therapy.
During my junior year of high school, my father made the difficult decision to go live at the Veterans’ Home. For thirty-five years he had lived with Multiple Sclerosis, a debilitating disease characterized by the destruction of the myelin sheath insulating the nerve cells. This degradation affects all movement by slowing or altogether halting nerve impulses to the muscles. As a result, my father became permanently wheelchair-bound around the time I started kindergarten. By my junior year of high school, he struggled with even simple tasks such as writing, dressing, grooming, and eating. It reached the point where he could no longer live at home without round-the-clock care. This revelation was earth-shattering but not a shock. It was yet another natural progression of the disease. Still, this did not prepare me for the emotions I experienced.
The multidisciplinary team (MDT) meeting that the author attended was regarding Laura 's case, a 62 year old lady that lives alone and had a fall followed by knee surgery on her right leg which now needed rehabilitation. Laura also has Hypertension, arthritis and was recently diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease, which is managed with medication.
When I first decided that I wanted to further my education in nursing, I was inspired by my job as a Home-Health Aide. At the age of sixteen, I started working for a company called Miracles In Motions. I worked with individuals who are mentally and physically disabled; assisting them with all their daily needs. One day on my job, I was introduced to Mr. Peloquin, a man with Cerebral Palsy. I introduced myself to him and he began telling me stories about himself and his disability. I could tell that he enjoyed my company and he expressed that he does not get to tell his stories often. The story that really caught my interest involved his recent hospital visit. He told me how mistreated he had been by the hospital staff due to his disability; there was no interaction from the health professionals, and he was not treated like a human being. He stressed to me that he hated the way he was treated and that this was just one of multiple similar situations. Conversing with Mr. Peloquin that day gave me a heavy