Working for a pay check or following your passion?

Vincent Van Gogh said, "Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling."
This passion, intensity, and spirituality are what we experience each day in the Palliative Care Unit. We opened our unit for patients July 15, 2009, and as we approach the end of our first year, I gain a new respect for the people that work on this unit. If you were to visit us on any given day, you would see the staff busy caring for their patients. They are eager to meet the needs of each patient and their family members. Additionally, the nurses and techs work to educate their peers throughout the hospital on the amazing service we can provide patients with progressive diseases. During the past 9 months, we have transitioned from what Van Gogh calls individuals coming to work for a paycheck, to a team; you might even say a family.
Our staff family works hard to ease the pain and burden of their patients. During this year, we have helped a patient achieve his last wish by working with the ICU in allowing him to spend his last few moments outside in the Meditation Garden. We have seen patients come and go that were not expected to live. We have helped a couple renew their wedding vows. We have watched wives curl up in bed beside their husbands, for one last hug. And we have held each other during difficult times.
Our family is not unlike your family. We have our struggles, our hopes for the Palliative Care Unit and each other, and we come to work each day hoping to provide the best possible care for our patients and their families.

- Ashley Hodo
Palliative Care Nurse Manager