December 2018
Kelsey
Friesen
,
BSN, RN, CCRN
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
Children's Mercy Kansas City
Kansas City
,
MO
United States
Kelsey recently took care of a patient who was intubated in the PICU and would frequently wake up and want to communicate with her as well as his family members. I was in the room helping for the first time when he started using sign language to try and communicate with Kelsey. Kelsey, his family, and I all looked at each other and we realized that none of us knew sign language or even the alphabet in sign language. So we got a notepad and pen for the patient. It was fairly hard to read what the patient was trying to communicate with the notepad, but it was worth a shot. The next time I came into the room to help, I noticed that Kelsey had printed off the alphabet in sign language and was starting to sign back to him. She had taken the time out of her busy day in the Intensive Care Unit to learn the entire alphabet. This was extraordinary patient-centered care, and she met this patient's unique needs, even when that meant taking her free time to learn another language. The next day, Kelsey was still assigned to this patient and was able to sign with him, she did not go to lunch until after 4:00 PM because she was so dedicated to the work she was doing in his room. This is just the smallest glimpse into the amazing work done in the PICU every day.