AAMP Conference - What is it that urges us to care?

(October 27, 2012)

Last weekend, I attended the annual conference of the American Association of Medicine and the Person in New Jersey.  The theme for the conference was a question, what is it that urges us to care?  This is an important question not only for medical practitioners but also for nursing home administration and HR personnel.  Studies have shown that the main reason nursing assistants stay in their position is not primarily for pay or benefits but due to their caring relationship with the residents.  Here's what the AAMP had to say on the theme at the conference web site:

We hold that within us there is an original and indomitable urge to respond to the request for help from our patients.  The aspect of our humanity that urges us to care for others is the heart.

We heard from medical researchers devoted to Trisome 21 and breast cancer, hospital nurses, a hospital architect and even a clown from a children's hospital clown troop.  All made the effort to present their work in the context of the human heart, the people and experiences that motivate them.  The theme spoke volumes to my heart.  I made the journey from mechanical engineering to long term care administration by following my heart through a career change that involved several years of one on one care.  There is nothing more important than our relationship with the residents when it comes to this profession.   Repeatedly we hear that CNAs stay in their job because of their relationship with the residents.  It was true in my work history and studies like the one from Southern University in Louisiana confirm it.  There are many things we can do to improve the work experience of nursing home employees such as staff appreciation events, build supervisor-employee relations, critically assess work load and systems but enabling staff to listen to their heart and develop relationships with the residents is the most important.

The question of the human heart and its role in employee satisfaction is linked closely to ethics and culture change in long term care.  Resident centered care is person centered care and persons are communal, naturally in relationship with each other.  If we understand the goal of ethics to be a life lived well, and in the case of nursing assistants, that means a job performed well and the development of healthy relationships with the residents.   We should go above and beyond to support staff's care relationship with the residents.
We can also break long term care ethics down to respecting the key commitments of the various persons involved in nursing home care.  Developing a professional and healthy relationship with the resident is a core commitment of nursing home staff.  It should be respected and supported. 

In the conference packet handed out during registration there was an interview with Dr. Anthony Lechich, a Geriatrician at the 729 bed Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center.  When asked what his greatest passion is at this time, he said it was the quality of death in the nursing home and bringing the residents joy in their relationships.  Dr. Lechich quoted Dr. John Morley,

If they took everything away, the one thing I would ask them to allow me is to be at the entrance of a nursing home.