On Monday, February 1, 2016, 30 minutes before our unit closed for the day, we received a patient from the Emergency Department. He was 19, with his sister (21 year old), and having an emergent laparoscopic appendectomy. His parents lived in Boston, Massachusetts and his mother had just visited Columbia and returned to Boston on Monday morning, several hours before his surgery. Sheri checked him in, talked to him and his sister and discovered they lived in the suburb next to where she grew up and went to college. After the patient went to the Operating Room, Sheri sat with the sister in the waiting room, was with the sister when the surgeon talked to her after the surgery, facilitated obtaining and filling the patient's prescriptions and facilitated the patient being admitted post-operatively to spend the night.
The patient lived in a dorm and his sister lived in a sorority house so she was unable to stay with her brother after discharge. Sheri facilitated the admit and spending the night in the hospital so the patient could be monitored and cared for. Sheri stayed with the sister during surgery, checked on the patient in the recovery room, communicated to the sister about her brother's condition while he was in the recovery room.
In all, Sheri spent 3-4 hours of her own time to make sure a patient (and his sister) far from home were taken care of. She took it upon herself to become their "mother" since the patient's own mother was in Boston.