Compassionate Direct Care Workers with Patients: Healthcare Photos, Stories (Long-Term Care Research, Video 3:55)

Photography is such a fascinating process. Capturing that special something which means more than words can ever say by themselves connects people at a guttural level of humanity. What if you are a healthcare worker giving ongoing caregiving support to patients as part of your job? What would you want to capture in photos to show the world what you really want to convey about your relationships with patients? How would you envision a photograph of compassionate caregiving and an accompanying story about your interactions with patients?

Research on compassionate caregiving was done by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. The study was designed to understand the views of direct care workers and included 15 nurse aides and medical technicians working in an assisted living and special care assisted living community for people with dementia. Participants were given digital cameras to create photographs showing what caregiving meant to them. Discussions, photographs, and written and oral stories revealed participants’ perceptions about their essential relationships with patients, not their required care relationships.

Like all direct care workers, doctors are also expected to demonstrate compassion in their care of patients. University of California San Diego Medical School is preparing aspiring doctors for practicing caring skills. In this video titled Putting The Care Back Into Health Care, KPBS Health Reporter Kenny Goldberg shares a compassionate care story of medical student Pritha Workman.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homesis available in paperback at many booksellers and in e-book form at Amazon and Barnes and Noble booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

After Death To-Do List: Can You Add to This Checklist?

A sun has set. Someone has come face to face with the Other Side of Through.

This checklist includes tasks to do immediately after death:

1. Some airlines have bereavement or compassion fares available for family members traveling for an imminent or actual death. These fares are discounted off the full price, but may not be the lowest fares available.

2. If possible, the exact time of death should be recorded. Loved ones may want to spend time with the deceased. Institutions where deceased persons lived will have procedures to follow regarding death.

3. Family  members, hospice staff, and possibly others such as a spiritual advisor and a mortuary for funeral arrangements, should be notified.

4. Several certified copies of death certificates will be needed to collect insurance and other death benefits. These copies can be obtained from mortuaries, vital statistics offices, county health departments, and online at county and state Web sites. Wills, trusts, birth, marriage and divorce certificates should be available. Social security cards, veteran papers, an obituary, and other documentation will be needed.

5. Family members may want to notify newspapers about publishing death notices and obituaries announcing the time and place of funeral or memorial services.

6. Arrangements with an online memorial service, often affiliated with newspapers, can ensure that those who do not attend funeral or memorial services in person will have the opportunity to participate online.

7. Contact should be made with insurance companies, unions, fraternal organizations, government offices, banks, credit unions, credit card companies, and real estate agencies to change titles if necessary.

8. Employee benefits from all previous employers should be investigated.

9. Arrangements for child care and out-of-town guests must be considered.

10. In the midst of all this activity, family members and friends should also consider their own feelings about death and the person who has died. The occasion that they may have been expecting while the loved one was ill has finally come. A life has been lived.

Information above is from Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback at many booksellers and in e-book form at Amazon and Barnes and Noble booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog