Top Docs 2008 Part III: Why to Speak Up

The R.N. Weighs in
What three decades on duty have taught the Boston Medical Center’s Nancy Figueiredo.

 

• “The best way to get anyone’s attention in a hospital is to not be melodramatic. The people who are in real pain don’t have the energy to yell.”

• “People say to me, ‘I don’t want med students touching me,’ and I understand that. But we have a responsibility to teach these students. The patients can be part of the process to educate the doctors of tomorrow, can be proud of that and not unhappy. And when they’re lying in bed and seeing 20 white coats around them, and they’re breaking out in a sweat, it’s my job to see that and help put them at ease.”

• “When people in cardiac distress would come into the ER, we pretty much had to attack them to get them straight to the cath lab: one of us ripping off the clothes, one putting in the IV, and so on. They were terrified. But I found a trick that always worked. I’d find a moment to lean down and whisper, ‘This is what we do for a living, and we are the best in the city of Boston,’ and I’d see their blood pressure go down 10 points.”

• “If you think of your healthcare in terms of a family, the primary care physician is truly the ‘grandfather,’ keeping a lookout on the rest of the clan. The specialist becomes the dad, who can actually intercede with Grandpa. The pharmacist is like a good uncle. But the nurse is always the mother, looking after the whole person. If you can find a nurse who loves you, you can get through the system.”