Anecdotes From The Tech in Red: The Relief of Being Seen – How Patient Interaction is Key to Healing

RUTH STOIA – The four walls of a patient’s room enclose more than the patient themselves. Inside that room, you will find a person who has a story, a life. What separates you from the narrative of their lives and the hallway is a door. That door is the entryway into their life. 

“Before you clock into work, check your energy at the door” were the words that one of my preceptors told me on my second orientating shift as a brand new patient care technician (PCT). As a PCT it is my job to round on about 8-9 patients when I clock in and take care of their basic needs throughout the shift. Basic needs include antiseptic bed baths, linen changes, hygienic needs, and ensuring they can eat on their own or assist with meal times. Throughout the shift, I also assist the nurses or doctors with simple bedside tests or tasks. At the end of the day I can not medically treat or diagnose patients, I simply follow orders from the doctor and attend to the needs of my patients. The tasks of a PCT can easily feel overwhelming mentally and physically. I not only need to keep up with my tasks of taking regular vital signs, charting, and assisting patients, while at the same time getting alerts that my assistance is needed elsewhere, but also face dissatisfied nurses and other coworkers.

Furthermore, most PCTs want to be in and out, just to be done with the task and move on. What separates the stress of work and the quality of care for my patients is that patient’s door. That stress should not occlude the quality or amount of care I provide for that patient. The minute the door opens, you enter into the life of a patient who is sick enough to land in a very daunting hospital room. Patients express their emotions in different ways. Some cry, some scream in anger, others stay silent. Some talk for hours on end trying to distract themselves from the pain or reality they’re in, and others stay silent. Humanity in its truest form is revealed when the privilege of health hangs in the balance, and we are face to face with weakness. Each patient has a story to tell, and nine out of ten times they want someone to listen. They want someone to know their story, to know that they too lived lives of glamour and fullness. The walls of that hospital echo thousands of stories of common people. People whose names will never appear in a headline, a book, an article, a film, or a record label.

I mentioned earlier that I can not treat with medicine, which is very true, that is out of my scope of practice. However, as a PCT there is something that we have the privilege of being able to do that doctors and nurses can not. We can spend time with our patients. It is an unwritten role in our job description, but one that can greatly alter the course of our patient’s quality of care. By sitting or staying with a patient and letting them speak, you are letting them communicate the aches of their soul, both indirectly and directly. Many philosophers state that when the soul aches, the body aches. You can give someone all of the medicine in the world, but if their innermost being is scarred, they will never fully be healed. The way patients are treated is more valuable than people think. The way you present yourself, care for them, and respond to their ailments affects the course of their healing. When you try to hear them and understand them, they feel you trying to connect. At the end of the day, they want to be heard, they want to be seen. They are in a vulnerable place of pain and suffering, where all they want is someone to talk through that door and see them as a person, not a room number with orders.

Copy Editor – Elizabeth Vaitl

Photography Source – https://homehealthaideguide.com/blog/patient-care-technician-role/