Caring has become the elephant in the room – large and in the way of what we are being encouraged to focus on instead.  We peer around this large gray animal and attempt to make it about the bottom dollar and how we keep customers from leaving our facility.  We need them to stay and instead of addressing that ellie in the room we spend a great deal of time and energy on skirting the obvious.  To the detriment of the people we are to serve.  It will become obvious to them at some point that – yes we have the latest and greatest, but we are not really caring about you. 

Harsh as this may sound the element of truth rings clear.  Our administrators are completely caught up in putting that elephant on a diet – “leaning” the poor thing so it becomes thin enough to easily walk by and ignore. And they will succeed. When our efforts become overly efficient they take out the human element.  The functionaries who are well functioning lose sight of what might have drawn them to their position in the first place – the need and desire to care for others.  That need and desire is put on the top of the elephant and is rarely taken down to be dusted.  The end result are unhappy functionaries who honestly can’t figure out why they are unhappy, nor do they have the energy to figure out what has happened to them and their ideals.

Reflecting on the art of caring.  What used to seem obvious has been reduced to sound bites, flashes of recognition a tickling of memory.  In moments of connection I am at peace with myself and what I do.  I have reached out to a person in need and listened.  We haven’t met, I am a voice on the phone yet at the end of our conversation, usually through a veil of tears my partner in conversation thanks me and expresses relief, Those moments we shared are caring.  It is not something I can charge for, my employer cannot bill insurance for this time spent, yet I know I felt a giving spirit in the words I spoke and she received them.  In our world of fast forward it is at times difficult to slow down enough to recognize and relish those moments.  For women with a diagnosis of breast cancer, stricken with a fear they cannot express – a stranger is a safe person to try to waken the numbed emotions with.

I am a nurse navigator.  Many variations of this title and profession exist. Many.  Some nurses might argue that they “navigate” their patients as well, so why the distinction? As a NN I am a chameleon tailoring my approach to meet the needs of each individual.  I must be able and willing to flex my methods and to intuitively grasp where the person is in their process knowing usually only their diagnosis and little else.  It can be honestly frightening- that first call, I never know what or where the person is on their emotional road and I have encountered the widest gambit imaginable.  I run without a script as a result to be able to allow the conversation to flow where it needs.  This approach is not for the faint of heart because without a script and with a purpose loosely defined as making sure at the end they have my name and phone number for the future, it takes us into uncharted territory.  The elephant in the room is riding through our conversation and I try to get up and ride it with the hopes that my patient can climb up and ride along with me.