Tanya Rutherford
August 2021
Tanya
Rutherford
,
RN
ER
Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center
Milwaukee
,
WI
United States

 

 

 

Tanya was extremely compassionate and empathic with him, holding his hands often to help him focus and to establish trust with him.
Tanya demonstrated great care for a patient who presented to the ED in a psychotic state due to acute intoxication/substance use. He was a humanitarian and was very paranoid/fearful and struggling to articulate the reasons he came to the ED and what he was wanting in terms of care. I observed Tanya throughout the day while he was being triaged and while he was getting cares. Tanya was extremely compassionate and empathic with him, holding his hands often to help him focus and to establish trust with him. This was a very challenging case as it took hours to better understand how we could help him and get him the care he needed to get well. The ED was very busy that day and it would have been easy for Tanya to succumb to the needs of the ED and leave the patient alone, which could have contributed to poor outcomes for him. Instead, she advocated for his needs; she established rapport and was able to convince him to allow her to contact family for collateral information and to arrange for him to be picked up and taken to a rehab facility in the community. She spent over 8 hours with this patient and it led to a positive outcome.