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In This Issue:
For ten weeks, musicians from the New England Conservatory played once a week on CWN-7, providing gynecologic cancer patients and their families with relaxing music and solace.
“The musicians brought in varied instruments each week, and it was delightful for our patients and staff alike,” said Detta Quigley-Lavoie, RN, nurse manager of CWN-7, who last year received a Thomson Compassionate Care Scholarship to fund the music project.
Hers was among six projects that received seed money for contributions to compassionate care for patients and families through the Thomson Compassionate Care Scholar Program. Over the past year, the awardees’ projects have taken shape and made palpable differences in the care of patients and families throughout the hospital.
Burn/trauma patients with young children are among those benefiting from the projects. Cheryl Ventola, RN, care coordinator, and Elaine Devine, LICSW, received a scholarship last year to help create backpacks with items that help children and teens process their feelings and worries related to their parent’s injury. The backpacks contain a journal for writing, colored markers, a stuffed animal, an age-appropriate book about coping with trauma and other items.
“Often, children would be sitting in the waiting room with nothing to do while their adult relatives visited the ICU,” said Selwyn Rogers, MD, MPH, chief of the Division of Trauma, Burns, and Surgical Critical Care, who was part of a Family-Centered Care subcommittee with Ventola and Devine that launched the program. “Now they have a healthy outlet that provides something to do and acknowledges them as an important part of the family system.”
In the NICU, Jo Ann Morey, BSN, RN, and Deirdre Greene, MSN, RN, used their scholarship to collaborate with Ann Furey, MSN, RN, from the Center for Nursing Excellence, to help revise the NICU Welcome Packet. After a year of reviewing content, editing and gathering photographs of NICU parents and babies, the new handbook has been bound and organized by topics of concern to parents, covering admission to discharge education. The beautiful book is given to all parents, and it’s available in Spanish and on a Web site in both languages.