I value these experiences and use them as guidelines in my nursing, to resurrect my mission, my chosen pathway. Emergency nursing is the path I had lived and breathed, but recently, I accepted a new pathway that of patient liaison. This new job is quite different from emergency nursing in that the needs of the patients are not for a quick IV fluid, a medicine, or a cardiac defibrillation, but for needs of a different sort. My patients need to feel that they are in a safe haven. They need to know that the hospital cares about them and will meet their individual needs and expectations.
Patients are like homemade quilts.
Their lives are patches of cloth entwined and sewn together with threads of varied colors love and fear, sprinkled with happiness and tears, triumphs and defeats. The edges of their lives, sealed with love or anguish, bound by memories engraved in the walls of their heart. Often the resurrection of these memories are brought forth by a hospital admission, long days, empty hours and loneliness. My role as patient liaison is to bring the warmth of a smile and the gentleness of a touch. I provide the ambience of a caring heart by taking the time to sit at the patient s side to listen to them talk about their lives, concerns and illnesses.