It's been a long week!

This week was probably the busiest one I've had at work yet. My co-worker has been gone for two weeks on jury duty and I've been giving a presentation about my NICU stay every day that I've worked-sometimes twice a day. I've been a part of a work group that has developed a program to remind staff members how they appear to families. Our goal is to help them remember to focus not only on the baby but on the families as well. The hour long mandatory inservice includes a video of some former parents talking about their experience, a role play video which goes over the wrong way and the right way to handle certain situations and then a powerpoint presentation given by me or my co-worker. I have to say people have been very moved by my story and some will get tears in their eyes which is exactly what we hoped to do. I was nervous the very first day but that didn't last long and now I'm very comfortable. I used to have to speak in front of employee groups ALL THE TIME in my past life but it's been a long time since I've had to do it! The inservices will continue through the month of May and then we will be taking the program to our other Children's NICUs in various hospitals across the city. Our next goal is to do this in front of the attendings and residents as they sometimes are the ones that really need to be reminded about family-centered care! I'm enjoying it very much as I feel it's breaking down some barriers that were there with some of the staff-some have been so open to the parent advisors and others, not so much.

Enjoy your weekend!