Rebecca's warm disposition and smile greet our patients daily in our clinic as a genuine act of her caring. As a mature nurse striving for excellence, Rebecca returned to school to complete her BSN graduating in September 2016. She is actively involved in our unit's processes and activities as the chair of the UBC council, along with the Neuroscience Fellowship program.
As I reflect on Rebecca's merit for this reward, her current motivational interviewing research project with our neurology patients has come to touch all elements of the DAISY Award ICARE. The project's aim is to improve the coping strategies that patients experience with muscle-skeletal demise while participating in apheresis treatments to maintain a stable quality of life. In apheresis, our patient becomes family in Rebecca's eyes, returning weekly or monthly for treatments. Rebecca shows compassion and respect as she talks to her patients using this evidence-based practice (EBP) approach with motivational interviewing.
Just the other day, Rebecca and her patient engaged in a tearful event that the patient shared regarding the feeling of guilt/burden regarding her relationship with her husband while being diagnosed with muscular sclerosis. Rebecca was able to direct her patient's feeling to solutions that involved the patient to reflect on the situation in a new light. By asking open-ended questions, affirming her strengths and abilities, and reflecting back what she was saying and then summarizing it all. Through this motivational interviewing process, the patient was able to hear herself speak words of comfort to herself. A core principle to motivational interviewing is that reflection is a revelation. The patient held Rebecca's hand and said "Thank-you so much Rebecca for caring about me! You helped me look at things in another light". Hugs and smiles were exchanged in Apheresis, including a PACT card for Rebecca.