Caitlin Berry, Registered Nurse, Hospice for Advocate Aurora Health, has been named a 2022 Frontline Honors honoree by Hospice News.
To become a Frontline Honoree, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a dedicated, high-performing frontline worker who delivers exceptional experiences and outcomes; a passionate worker who knows how to put their vision into action for the good of seniors and aging industry professionals; and an advocate for seniors, their industry, and their peers.
Hospice News caught up with Berry to discuss their time in the hospice care industry.
HSPN: What drew you to the Hospice Care industry?
Berry: I started my career as an oncology nurse, and eventually realized I was providing a lot of end of life care, but with no training or acknowledgment that many of my patients were in their last months, weeks or even days of life! I became a home hospice nurse, and enjoyed learning and developing the autonomy, critical and creative thinking, and therapeutic communication skills the job demands. Hospice is a field in which conversations are just as complex and important as procedures, the patient experience is the most important aspect of practice, and where a clinician may be a nurse, doctor, pharmacist, CNA, IT consultant, cook, and occasional plumber! It’s a fantastic and fascinating field of work.
What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in the industry?
Respond to emotion. You need to address the emotions of your patients, families, and coworkers before relaying a message or delivering information; failure to do so will result in people not listening to you, as they don’t feel heard at all!
Ask “why” or “why not?” when making a decision or responding to a request. Healthcare in general, and the science of hospice and palliative medicine especially, is changing so rapidly that doing (or not doing!) something because “that’s the way we do it” is just not an acceptable rationale anymore.
What’s your favorite part about your job?
I find helping someone become physically and mentally comfortable is hugely rewarding. Assisting patients and families to understand what is and will be happening and find some level of peace and understanding is a true privilege. Also, I work with excellent people.
What do you want society (or the general public) to know about your job?
It’s not as sad as they imagine. Working in healthcare settings where I contributed to the physical and emotional discomfort of patients either by my lack of knowledge of serious illness and death or by attempting to carry out a plan of care that had no benefit and high risk of harm was so much more difficult than what I do now.
What may be one thing leaders don’t know, that you wish they universally knew, about your job?
I think the voice of bedside staff (nurses, CNAs, social workers, and chaplains) is still undervalued and underutilized. We don’t have extensive quality metrics or objective measures such as lab values or adherence to screening recommendations to assess the quality of the care being provided, so the perspective and experience of these workers provides the greatest insight into the care your agency or facility is providing. If they are asking for something, there’s often a good reason for it! Also, failing to involve bedside staff in committees and decisions that impact the care they provide will result in staff that are unsatisfied and change that is not sustained.
To view the Frontline Honors Class of 2022, visit frontlinehonors.agingmedia.com
