More Than a Diagnosis: Humanizing Patients in Critical Care

What happens when a patient becomes “the GI bleed in 12” instead of a person?

In this deeply reflective episode of Banter at the Bedside, Abby and Kaleigh are joined by Dr. Armando (ICU + nephrology) and Amanda, a CICU nurse of nearly 20 years, to explore what it really means to humanize patients in critical care.

From micro-communications and bedside manners to burnout, shame in medical training, and the ethical tension between biological survival and personhood, this conversation dives into the hard truths of modern healthcare.

We discuss:

• How ICU culture can unintentionally dehumanize patients
• Why “treat them like family” isn’t always simple
• Human trafficking and suicide cases that changed us
• Compassion fatigue and protecting yourself emotionally
• The danger of reducing patients to “learning opportunities”
• Why small moments (saying a name correctly, closing a door, explaining a plan) matter more than we think

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of sex trafficking and suicide.

Whether you're a nurse, physician, APP, healthcare student, or someone who has loved a patient through critical illness — this conversation is for you.

Because every room number has a name.
And every diagnosis belongs to a human.

#BanterAtTheBedside #ICUNurse #CriticalCare #HumanizingHealthcare #CompassionFatigue #MedicalEthics #HealthcarePodcast

Transcript

Armando (00:00)
You go from treating patients to treating numbers and trends and vitals and ventilation modes and, you know, all those variable things

it's normal as a provider. I go in and I feel sad. I feel angry with whatever the patient is saying. But I don't close myself to those emotions because I feel once you close those emotions, there goes the patient. It's just another case,

Kaleigh Slade (00:21)
Is this what would need to be done to help my favorite person who's laying here in this bed?

Abigail Baugh (00:47)
Hi everyone, welcome back to Banter at the Bedside. We are so excited to have you here today for a very special episode where we're really talking about how we humanize patients or how we remember that they're humans. We've talked a ton about compartmentalizing, how we use it to protect ourselves. Now today we're going to be breaking down that wall a little bit and talking about how we remember that they're humans and how we show compassion. As always, this is not medical advice. Please seek the care of your medical.

Kaleigh Slade (00:48)
everyone.

Abigail Baugh (01:17)
professionals and this is for entertainment purposes only we do not represent any entity at all these thoughts and opinions are our own. We have two very special very compassionate guests here with us. First we have Dr. Armando.

Armando (01:34)
Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Armando. Well, I'm a physician. I usually practice nephrology and ICU medicine. Like any other doctor, the journey of a doctor is pretty long. So being sort of relating and working with patients for quite some time and very passionate about the patient-doctor relationship, the sort of connecting with my patients and sort of really, really becoming family members most of the time with them.

Abigail Baugh (01:34)
Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Armando (02:02)
So I really enjoy that part of my job. I'm very excited that Abby invited me for this podcast. I do are very passionate about meaning in life, finding meaning in life for our patients, ourselves, also help them get better through their diseases, illnesses, but also help with their spiritual health as well. So I do very passionate. I'm very happy of being here.

Abigail Baugh (02:25)
We are so excited to have you here. I know Armando is just like the sweetest. And then next up we have probably one of the sweeter, sweetest nurses we have on the unit, Amanda.

Kaleigh Slade (02:41)
Hey y'all, I'm Amanda. I have been a CICU nurse for almost 19 years. ⁓ I love the unit we work in. made some of my best friends there. It's a joy to be here today.

Abigail Baugh (02:55)
And Amanda gets the name on the unit as Mama.

Armando (02:59)
Yeah.

Abigail Baugh (03:01)
because she's a mom to everyone.

Kaleigh Slade (03:04)
Yes, I'm personally a mom. I'm a mom to my co-workers. She's a great listener and she gives very good ⁓ life advice.

Abigail Baugh (03:11)
Mm-hmm.

and she's a vault. So when you tell her something, it's locked away.

Kaleigh Slade (03:24)
Y'all do know that

I know some things. Don't nobody else know.

Abigail Baugh (03:28)
Mm-hmm.

Well, we're excited to have you both here. I wanted to open up this conversation. You guys actually really brought this idea to us. So kind of tell us about it. Maybe Armando, you can go on about how this part of being a physician is so important to you.

Armando (03:51)
Well, I can tell you, started early in my residency career. I was grateful enough to meet great people that help patients on a daily basis to address spiritual and mental health more than anything. And I got very passionate about it because as a physician, you can find yourself at times that what you do might not feel as rewarding or as meaningful for many things, burnout or just too much work or whatnot.

But I found early in my career that if you really, really engage with people and sort of treat them like family, but truly treat them like family and understand that other than biological survival, there's a person who's survival. And a lot of patients go through a lot of stuff in the hospital and it's very easy to just not think about the human that is laying there. And also, as a physician, we like to

read a lot of stuff, especially with this topic today talking about ethics and sort of, again, going back to the meaning in life and how often people go a whole lifetime without really realizing what is meaningful to them and how every situation that we face can be meaningful in some way or some shape. So I think for me, it was a way of first,

myself finding a greater purpose as a physician and being able to connect with people pretty quick and pretty effectively, which I enjoy. And I think, you know, it just happened. It just happened to be there. I think just my home values, my values I raised, I was raised by, I think that also helps on my fate as well. It helps me sort of, you know, centered and ground myself at every time that I'm facing new challenges with patients.

And it's kind of interesting finding other people, right, nurses and other physicians, how do they address this issue of how it's easy to dehumanize patients when they're admitted to the hospital and how hard it for us to humanize them back and sort of, you know, fill them back with some sort of meaning and just give them positive vibes, right, for them to get better and recover. ⁓

Abigail Baugh (06:14)
I do want to point out, I love all of what you just said, but I think there's one piece that really kind of stuck out to me when you said, treat them like family, but truly treat them like family. And I think that we say so much in healthcare, like when something goes wrong or we don't think that someone's maybe treating the patient well, it's like, well, what if that was your mom? What if that was your dad? You know, we should deliver the same care that we would want our family to receive. And I think we...

Kaleigh Slade (06:32)
Hmm.

and

Abigail Baugh (06:43)
say that a lot, but are we all truly carrying it out all the time? And so I love that piece and like that you said that like yes treat them like family, but truly treat them like your family. Unless you don't get along with your family then don't do that.

Kaleigh Slade (07:02)
Yeah.

Armando (07:04)
I guess that can

Abigail Baugh (07:04)
Jump.

Armando (07:05)
be real too, but I will argue that even if you don't get along with family, they're still human beings, And it's a big difference when you're treating an object or just ⁓ fixing something that doesn't feel, doesn't have any emotions versus something that experiences a lot of odd and fair thoughts when people are sick. So...

Abigail Baugh (07:07)
Yeah.

they are.

Yeah.

Armando (07:32)
I do believe that a physician that takes care of patients like they are truly, truly their family members helps the patients first and it really, really gives a lot of meaning for the physician to continue to do the hard work.

Kaleigh Slade (07:51)
If people can't relate to, well, you know, my family and I don't have a great relationship, well, you have a chosen family. You have a chosen family within your friends or your coworkers. So you want to treat them like your best people in your world is what we mean when we say family.

Armando (07:56)
you

Abigail Baugh (08:09)
Well, what about you, Amanda? How do you continue to humanize the patient after almost 20 years?

Kaleigh Slade (08:17)
You know, I think when I was. I wanted to become a nurse when I was a teenager because my aunt had quadruplets. And they were in the NICU and I just knew I wanted to be a NICU nurse. And I remember going in. My Peds clinical and when I spent time with those babies, I said, OK, well, that's not what I can do. That hurts my feelings too bad. My hats go off to all pediatric.

providers and nurses. ⁓ I could not do it. And now after being a mom and having kids, there's no way. ⁓ But taking care of these adults, ⁓ if you've been a patient yourself, if you've had family in the hospital, I think it just makes you a better nurse, a better provider, a better care partner. And it helps you remember what's important.

And it is the little things. It is the advocacy for the patient. It is the wiping tears away. You know, it just, it's just all about the little things and all about protecting yourself because if you're given that kind of care to people, it is exhausting, especially if you have personal things going on that are exhausting you already knowing how to protect yourself. I'm a little woo woo. So there's things that I do.

protect myself before going into a shift and what I do to release because this energy has to stay at the hospital. ⁓

Abigail Baugh (09:57)
I'm a little woo woo.

Armando (09:59)
Thank you.

Abigail Baugh (10:02)
I think you have your

on shift methods too, right? Like you openly will ask for some love, some love time from all of us to love on you, give you some back rubs. And I think that.

Kaleigh Slade (10:14)
Yeah, think ⁓

Anyone can rub my back. Yes, and I don't stop like I just melt from the back. It's fun. You are No, there's only a couple people She doesn't get a choice I'm make her ⁓

Abigail Baugh (10:20)
You

Hahaha!

Armando (10:31)
Thank you.

Abigail Baugh (10:35)
Mm-hmm.

Armando (10:37)
Bye.

Kaleigh Slade (10:37)
But ⁓

yeah, I mean, I like to pour into my coworkers. like for them to pour into me. And sometimes that's just helping each other get through a really busy admission. Or sometimes it's during downtime talking about personal things or frustration with the patients or the families or... But protecting yourself is just really important when you're giving that kind of care.

Abigail Baugh (11:01)
Yeah. When you guys brought this up, I was reminded of kind of my journey into nursing, which is funny because my best friend, when we started this, she was like, are you ever going to tell this story? And I was like, I don't know how I'll fit this story in, but if it comes up, sure. So I found the place. So in nursing school, never having

Kaleigh Slade (11:02)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Abigail Baugh (11:29)
been a patient, my family never brought me to the hospital to see loved ones. So it was kind of a different environment for me. I was so worried all the time. So, so worried. I so zeroed in on getting my nursing things done that I did very much at 20 forget that this is a human. It was in my mind, they're in the hospital. This is the expectation. I have to get my job done. And so I kept getting this feedback on my evaluations that I needed to.

think about that patient, think about them. And I tried, because I didn't have that experience, I couldn't relate. And so what I ended up doing was I signed up to become a nude model on campus in my art class. And so for three hours every week, I went in front of an art, class of artists, art students.

Armando (12:19)
Thank

Kaleigh Slade (12:27)
She's hearing this for the first time.

Abigail Baugh (12:30)
And I was a nude model. I sat up there butt naked.

I sat up there butt naked.

And they would pose me. And let me tell you, it was the same class. was the same class. This is like they're expressing how beautiful my body was. Like they're hyping me up. And I'm just like having to lay there, which I will tell you, it is very hard to hold a position for that long. OK. ⁓

Kaleigh Slade (12:59)
Yeah.

Abigail Baugh (13:02)
But every week going in, I was so anxious. I was so nervous. I was like, my God, what am I doing? How am I doing this? But sure enough, finding that experience, ⁓ like now, even to this day, you will see like if a patient's coding, like I'm one of the first people, nope, cover them up, nope, cover them up. their stuff doesn't need to be hanging out. We're not doing anything there.

Kaleigh Slade (13:23)
Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

Abigail Baugh (13:29)
because I know what that feels like and it was the same students. They weren't even touching me. They weren't. I had plenty of space. I could call it quits whenever I wanted. I could walk away whenever I wanted. I had that freedom. But it taught me so much about what they experience of just the bare nudity in front of people and like even just like again, you can't move and that is so hard and so painful. It made me

be like, you got a turn, Q2 hour turns? That's a joke. Like I couldn't hold that position for 20 minutes. Like, and I ended up writing an article that got published about it.

Armando (14:02)
you

Kaleigh Slade (14:03)
Yeah, I believe it. Yeah.

And it doesn't surprise

me. Of course you did.

Armando (14:14)
Yeah.

Abigail Baugh (14:16)
But how we really do as a healthcare professionals need to find ways to relate to patients and really get these experiences if we don't have them, find them on your own. I'm not saying everyone should go be a nude model, but I did get some gorgeous pictures of me at age 20, okay.

Kaleigh Slade (14:37)
I love that. I love the raw reaction from kaleigh That was my favorite. I how have I never heard this? I love that. It's such an it's very unconventional. Very vulnerable. Yeah, thing to do but I'm glad you brought that up. I am... well I know it's never a nude model but...

Armando (14:40)
I don't know if I'll be able to do that.

Abigail Baugh (14:49)
I haven't told you this.

Kaleigh Slade (15:03)
I really think there's very few privacy's that we can give patients in the hospital. But not being naked to everybody when they don't have to be is so easy. People just forget it's not on purpose, but I'm like, close the door, close the door. That's right. I'm going to close the door. Right. It's the little things. It's close the window. You're to go do an echo or check your IVC and you're throwing some gel on them. And then you leave the breast exposed, the gel on the blanket back. That's a quick ticket to get fussed at with my glasses off.

Abigail Baugh (15:31)
you

Armando (15:31)
That's

how you dehumanize patients.

Kaleigh Slade (15:33)
That's you found

the patient? That's how you leave the patient. Come on.

Abigail Baugh (15:36)
Yeah, that's

how, and I think it's, are those kind of the little things Armando that you think, that's how we dehumanize, like it's these small steps that dehumanize.

Armando (15:47)
know, in ethics and psychology studies, they have looked into this sort of interaction and, you know, communications, those micro communications, not telling the patient the changing plan or not explaining what you're doing or not even explaining the consent fully, right? It can be very easy to say, we're going to do a central line, bleeding, infection, and pneumothorax, call it a day. But truly, truly, once you start, you know, what Amanda says, the little details, Patients do notice that.

Kaleigh Slade (16:01)
Yeah.

Armando (16:17)
Patients say, well, he's talking to me like my mom would. He will give me all the details, all the nuances of what may or may not happen. And being fair, it does take time. And oftentimes, as a provider, as a nurse, you're just ticking, ticking in that shape. You're trying to get things done, care for the patient, documentation, all the stuff that really, really can make you, or we'll say make the patient a victim of dehumanizing.

Kaleigh Slade (16:37)
Yeah.

Armando (16:47)
So I do agree that, you know, little things, the little things do matter at all. I feel if everyone will think about those little things, probably, you know, our patient care and experience will be much better. You know, I always like to, you know, going back to my meaning in life, right, I bring this topic all the time that I'm talking about humanizing patients. you know, I can tell you dehumanizing patients in the ICU is very easy.

Kaleigh Slade (16:53)
Yeah, they're big things.

Armando (17:16)
more so more common than in the general medicine words because you have the delirium sedation, know, you have control of every little aspect of that patient, right? Even compared to maybe, you know, being a prisoner, right? You strip them from their clothes, you control their time, you wake them up any single time. You go from treating patients to treating numbers and trends and vitals and ventilation modes and, you know, all those variable things

Kaleigh Slade (17:31)
Yeah.

Armando (17:44)
and

I feel the way that we can, as providers, all of us, be able to sort of kind of real back that patient from feeling very sad or depressed or just not finding any meaning in that moment when they're sick to just get better, you know, or have the will to keep living. I feel one of those things that I tend to do is I talk to patients about meaning and, you know, how this illness can give you some sort of temporary meaning that might allow

help you for your ultimate meaning in life, which to be fair, not everyone can find that meaning in their entire lifetime. But it's fair to say that experiences, ⁓ creativity and my attitude, which are sort of the three pinnacles that can give you meaning in life, if you really address those things with the patient, you can really, really turn that patient to actually be.

super motivated to get better, know, take their medications when they leave the hospital, get out of bed and participate with physical therapy and give that extra strength, know, extra little bit of valor to help them get better. So I tend to ask patients about, you know, what things, how do you consider yourself a creative person, right? And what things do you do? Maybe it's a mechanic, maybe it's an artist, like you said, you know, those people see you.

sculpting you and drawing you and painting you. mean in some way, some sort in their minds, you are helping them giving meaning to their life either by art or by whatever reason. But you know finding creativity, asking people about your attitude towards problems, this problem, comparing to other problems that they have in their lifetime and contrasting that to them in those hard moments can really

Kaleigh Slade (19:28)
.

Armando (19:34)
switch that mind and create a positive attitude. And the experiences, of course, is something that takes a whole life for people to develop and have. But I feel when you ask people about the experience for the last 24 hours, just as simple as that. Is the nursing treating you good? Are you feeling that you still feel like a human? It's very easy to not feel like it and just feel like a case. I think...

touching those points on your daily conversation with patients. You don't need to just do a therapy session with them, of course, but trying to tease out those things from the patient and kind of not coerce them, but let them know that you care about those things and you care about them, I think is very key. It's very important for us.

Kaleigh Slade (20:22)
can touch on that personally. And I'm going to tell on you a little bit, Armando. But I remember, you know, he really does practice what he preaches. You know, so many people that say the good things to say the right things, but they don't actually implement them. And he is very much a man of his word. I remember there was a guy, Spanish speaking guy, who only knew a little bit of English. And I remember he wasn't my patient, but he told me about it, I think a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago at this point, but

Armando (20:26)
All right.

Thanks.

Kaleigh Slade (20:51)
he wouldn't want to take his medications. He didn't, he was just irritated. We try to give him some medicine to try to chill him out a little bit. He was, ⁓ not maybe a little combative at night at times, but you came in and talked to him just about life and he opened up to you and he could trust you that much more because you can speak Spanish and that helps so much, ⁓ to these patients that we serve. But, ⁓

I remember you got out of him that basically I've been trying to please my dad my whole life and I'm supposed to be macho. I'm obsessed with him and this culture teaches me that I'm not supposed to have feelings and I'm not supposed to cry and I'm supposed to people please my parents and take care of them and you were able to break that barrier down and meet him where he was to be able to serve him that much better and I just thought that was so beautiful.

Armando (21:29)
Yeah.

It starts with an advice too. Think about it. How often can you go through life and don't even get a true true advice? Not just don't cross the street without looking left and right because you're gonna get crushed by a car. That's not an advice or some sort of an advice that will give you some sort of power to embrace your future, whatever that looks.

But a real, real advice, a real, counseling, right, usually comes from your parents, right? You will assume, you know, mom and dad will sit down with you and tell you, do this because of that, and here and this. But it's very easy to lose that, you know, and I think I remember that person you were talking to, and part of it is that separation that that person had from his home, right, and not being able to see those people that could give you some sort of advice.

when you are in your worst moment, either you lost your job or you lost a child or whatever that may be. I always for the students, for the most part, medical students, I'm always telling them, keep good advice to patients. Not just medical advice. Try to make it a human advice, something that your mom will tell you or your dad will tell you. And believe it or not, not a lot of people get a good advice. They don't.

Also, people don't listen, right? You might fair to say, you know, people need to listen. It's a two-way communication and process. But oftentimes in our setting, in the hospital, when people are very vulnerable, I do think they listen more than rather not want to do what you're telling me. I don't think there is a patient, an impossible patient, that cannot get breakthrough.

You know, I really, I mean, I really don't think there is one, there's troublesome ones, there are difficult ones, and you can add layers of psychiatry, illnesses and whatnot. But ultimately, ⁓ even, you know, let me, let me bring you an example. I treated this human trafficking girl who was 21 years old when I met her down in South Florida. And by the time that I met her, ⁓

Kaleigh Slade (23:47)
you

Armando (24:01)
I mean, it took me almost a whole night. I remember leaving work and going back to her room around 9 p.m. I had a Catholic priest with me that I called to just kind of help me deal with this situation. I was young as well as a provider. But I remember, you know, sitting there and the first thing that she told me was never, you know, never has ever come by and just sit with me, not even my family, you know, when I'm in the hospital and

Kaleigh Slade (24:27)
Yeah.

Armando (24:28)
For me,

that was kind of mind blowing to a sense like, wow, I don't think my family will do that. Just kind of leave me alone. And we kept talking about other stuff. And she came to tell me I've been raped tons of times. And it was a pretty tragic story for that person. But even in all that tragedy, in all that tragedy, she always kept saying, why does this happen to me?

Kaleigh Slade (24:47)
Thank

Hmm.

Armando (24:58)
asking that why does this happen to me? Why does this happen to me? And in a way she has been dehumanized, right? Not in the hospital by that time, but by her prior experiences and all that she knew, you know, all my experiences have been bad, have been tragic and she kept asking why did this happen to me? To be frankly honest, not even the Catholic priest had an answer for that, right? You know, we, I, I, I,

Kaleigh Slade (25:01)
Thank

Armando (25:25)
I be honest. couldn't really say anything. I was just in shock looking at her and trying to even ask myself, am I the right person to answer you and be here? And you know, she kept saying it and saying it. And at some point I just told her, you know, I think why these things happen to you, I cannot really say why. But I can tell you the attitude that you can have to face these problems will determine a lot of your future.

Kaleigh Slade (25:35)
⁓ Yeah, and you're not even going through it.

Armando (25:56)
And I feel that kind of really got into her mind because the next day I went to see her, very briefly, went there for like 20 minutes just to say hi, right, just to keep that sort of positive attitude because she was very depressed that first day that I met her. And you know, the first thing that she told me in Spanish was, you you gave me strength to sort of face this problem, which I cannot change. I can only change how do I face it, my attitude towards it.

Kaleigh Slade (25:56)
Thank

Mm.

Armando (26:26)
And you know, at that point she kept telling me, you know, I like that you are also a Catholic. I'm a Catholic by nature. You know, but I never practiced that religion. And I remember telling her like, you know, even though I'm a Catholic, my faith is human kindness, right? And starting with human kindness in itself, ⁓ you can relate to anyone. My religion is I'm a Catholic, sure, but you know, my faith is...

human kindness and sort of being a good person, right? Being a good person to the other person. We came to this world to be with people. We didn't came to this world to be by ourselves. So again, I can talk and talk about these. do have more experiences and especially in South Florida where you get to see all these human trafficking patients. Medicine is something that really, really

Kaleigh Slade (27:07)
That's right.

Ugh.

Armando (27:25)
I guess he can really, really show you and make you a better person. But if you don't understand that balance within yourself, you were talking about, you know, protecting yourself emotionally from the day, the shift that you're about to start. Every time I get to see the nurses, ⁓ this patient is driving me crazy. this patient, I kind of take another day with him. Give me another assignment. You know, it's very easy to protect your staff, right? Which as a provider, I do care a lot about my staff well-being.

Abigail Baugh (27:36)
Mm-hmm.

Armando (27:55)
and their day to day, but is it the right thing for us to always say, you know, I'm going to protect myself, protect myself when we are in positions that we are there to serve and help people. And I feel very easy a way to dehumanize patients is when you just take that wall and say, I'm not going to get emotional around by this patient at all. And then you start losing that human touch.

And it's normal for, at least in my beliefs, it's normal as a provider. I go in and I feel sad. I feel angry with whatever the patient is saying. But I don't close myself to those emotions because I feel once you close those emotions, there goes the patient. It's just another case,

another bed four septic shock, whatever you want to call it. So I feel one thing is a balance, of course, right? It's not just a one way. You need to protect yourself.

Kaleigh Slade (28:48)
That's right.

Armando (28:50)
But if you want to be an effective ⁓ physician, provider, nurse, all the levels, you have to allow to some emotions to flow through you so you can really be effective, especially when patients get discharged. That's when the hard work really starts for the patient.

Kaleigh Slade (28:51)
Thank

For sure.

And you talk about, ⁓ you know, having values or, you know, taught by your family, have advice and not everybody gets that, you know, not everybody has that kind of upbringing where they're poured into, great parents, but ⁓ not everybody gets to have that. And I think too, people have to be open to experience their own feelings in order to process someone.

Armando (29:15)
Mm-hmm.

Kaleigh Slade (29:38)
So someone who doesn't know how to deal with anger very well is probably gonna get angry back, you know, there's When people are acting unlike themselves or either what hungry tired lonely scared I mean, it's usually not a positive emotion right that's going with Them getting upset but not everybody is aware to even how

how to help themselves. And sometimes when you do try to help people with the compassion that we give, if you're not willing to listen, you can, what is it? Lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink, you know? And that's why I say too, you have to protect yourself because some people don't want to hear it. Some people are going to come in with an MI, get a stent to the LAD, come back, have another one come back, may need a CABG And some of these patients don't learn. They still choose to,

Abigail Baugh (30:14)
Yeah.

Armando (30:31)
Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (30:33)
Partaking the risk factors contributing to these issues. But sometimes all it takes is one little angioplasty and you know, someone's like, all right, I'm going to get better. I'm going to eat better. I'm going to move my body. ⁓ So that is definitely a huge barrier. I've learned in life, you can't pour and pour and pour and pour into something that just doesn't want to hear it. But I'm absolutely willing to teach you and guide you for the 12 hours that I have you that day.

praying that I'm able to get through somehow because ⁓ you know, I do think we all have gifts no matter who you are, what human you are, we all have gifts and I think that compassion is something that I have been gifted with but it can exhaust yourself completely if you're pouring and pouring and pouring into this cup with no bottom and it pours and pours and it doesn't actually do anything positive.

Armando (31:25)
Yeah.

Abigail Baugh (31:28)
Yeah.

Armando (31:30)
It is a balance, right? It is a balance. something that I practiced early in my career was Schwartz rounds. I think we talk about this, Amanda, doing a bedside. But Schwartz rounds, this was a Boston-based attorney that died from lung cancer in his 40s. And he made this, sort of developed this concept of a...

Kaleigh Slade (31:39)
Yeah.

Armando (31:51)
multidisciplinary meeting between health care providers to just talk about the emotional and social impact of working in health care. Nothing about medicine, no drugs, nothing like that. I did all of that for many years in residency and it was kind of shocking when I moved out of Florida to sort of say, why are we not doing this everywhere, right? Because I think it's a healthy.

Abigail Baugh (32:17)
Yeah.

Armando (32:17)
practice and maybe there's a room for us where we work right to actually develop something like that. We used to do it every month and we'll just bring one very ethical case for the most part that a lot of people had many sort of emotional challenges with it and we'll bring everyone from case managers to doctors to social workers to even family members that participate in the care of their loved ones. ⁓ look it up. It's called Schwartz Runs. It's a very

It's a very positive concept. think everyone should be doing this but you know, unfortunately it's not Yeah, Schwartz. It's C-S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z Schwartz It's a Schwartz. Yeah and Maybe something that we can start I would say it does help and you'll find you'll find interesting reactions from people that maybe you didn't even thought that

Abigail Baugh (32:49)
Can you spell it for me? Charge.

Schwartz. Schwartz.

Yeah.

Armando (33:16)
that they were that emotional driven. But yeah, something to talk about, consider.

Kaleigh Slade (33:16)
Okay.

Abigail Baugh (33:19)
Yeah, think we've, yeah, I think we've definitely had some

cases recently that would be beneficial for it. Some long-term patients.

Armando (33:31)
I always talk about my suicidal patient. I told Amanda about it. ⁓ Once when I was a resident, we had this prisoner, a convict, who tried to commit suicide and ended up having been in a coma state. Not vegetative state, but just pure coma, not really waking up. We're talking about tracheostomies and pegs and all these things. And no family was around. No one was claiming or talking about this guy. was just part...

Kaleigh Slade (33:32)
Thank

Yeah.

Armando (34:01)
Property of the state at that point and you know, we were arguing if this is ethical to keep someone like this right there or we should proceed with palliative care and allow nature to take his course and you know We have so much push back from the state right the judge came by saying, you know this guy We cannot allow him to die because that would align with his suicidal attempt and you know, those type of topics can be pretty draining

Kaleigh Slade (34:28)
Yes.

Armando (34:31)
Very training for the provider, especially the ICU doctor there doing all these things, even for the surgeon. We had three surgeons that were not, they were like, don't gonna do the tracheostomy at all. But then you have, you have.

Kaleigh Slade (34:43)
Who said that? Who

said that we couldn't allow them to die because it would allow their suicidal ideation? The judge.

Armando (34:48)
That's what the judge, the court, he

Abigail Baugh (34:49)
judge.

Armando (34:52)
needed to go back to prison, right, to sort of his sentence. If not, we will be assisting his suicide attempt. ⁓ So, you you get to these topics, right, and a lot of people were like, my God, what's happening? When do we stop thinking about our patient, right, a human? And he just became a number, a convict number at that point. So, you know, these dehumanizing patients can be from many...

Kaleigh Slade (35:02)
So sweet.

Armando (35:16)
It's never the physician is cruel or the nurses are cruel. They just mean people. It usually tends to be an institutional problem or a system-based problem that kind of led to that process of dehumanizing patients. that's just the surface of how much we encounter on a daily basis. But cases like that really stick with me and I think it will always be in my mind and heart.

Abigail Baugh (35:36)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Armando (35:45)
A patient actually ended up getting tracheostomy and went back to jail. A special jail. was like an L-TAC of weird. Yeah, it's kind of, wasn't like a true L-TAC. It was some part of, I guess, another unit.

Abigail Baugh (35:54)
Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (35:56)
L-TAC is already jail. What are you, an L-TAC jail?

Abigail Baugh (35:59)
You

Kaleigh Slade (36:03)
stupid as shit I

ever heard. ⁓ I'm sorry. Let's trach them and send them back to jail. my gosh. Okay. Sorry. Maybe that was too harsh.

Armando (36:06)
I agree with that.

Abigail Baugh (36:07)
those tax dollars.

Armando (36:13)
It would have been

different if he was brain dead, right? Because at that point you have actual death or if he would have just wake up and be awake, you know, but being in a coma state, he just I guess it never happened to the in the state of Florida.

Abigail Baugh (36:14)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Well.

Kaleigh Slade (36:27)
You think it would be the opposite. You'd

like, yeah, well, let's not use any more resources. Well, you know, people who want to commit suicide aren't necessarily. we can't allow him to get what he wanted. I don't know. It's just people that change separate things and people can want to do better. And in my opinion, it doesn't matter if he's a prisoner or not or ward of the state or not. Any patient who is anoxic who's not waking up, you can choose to let them.

Armando (36:32)
I-I-I-You

Abigail Baugh (36:32)
resources.

Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (36:56)
a natural death. I don't understand why it would matter.

Armando (36:56)
Yeah, and that's in ethics.

In ethics is that competition between biological survival and personhood survival, right? And it's very easy for medicines to say, well, biological survival is breathing, it's connected to the vent yada yada. But is it a person? Can that person feel, has memory? What makes you a person, right? That's the essence of all these ethical problems, right?

Kaleigh Slade (37:04)
just

Abigail Baugh (37:18)
Mm-hmm.

I have a question. You kind of touched on it, but I think it goes with this. ⁓ I think one of maybe my triggers, especially in academic medicine, and it comes from all levels, ⁓ is when learners refer to patients as that's a good case or that's my learning opportunity. I need this learning opportunity. And for me, it's like nails on a chalk.

Like the second I hear that, I'm like, so they're just a learning opportunity to you. Like you can learn and you don't have to take care of the patient to learn from a patient. But like the second I hear that, I'm like, you aren't looking at them as a person. Like that's a patient. Am I alone in that? Am I just being too sensitive?

Kaleigh Slade (38:15)
I don't think you're being too sensitive. off, I don't think that there's anything or anyone that's too sensitive. Firstly, then second thing. Thanks, mom.

Armando (38:25)
Thank you, Mom.

Abigail Baugh (38:26)
I know you go in and I look like crap and she's like you look beautiful. I'm like you'd say that anyway You just you you just love me too much

Kaleigh Slade (38:33)
Yeah. You just love me. I don't even do love you, dagummit.

Armando (38:37)
You

Kaleigh Slade (38:40)
I mean, tell you, if you look real crack, damn bitch, you're a raggedy today. Yeah. I mean, if you look like a ragamuffin, I'm gonna say, sis, we gotta do something, but you are very much harder on yourself than everyone else is. I think that there have been, yes. Now you're not too sensitive. And yes, you're exactly right. I never want to put blanket statements over anybody over any.

fellow MD nurse practitioner, PA. That's not what it is. It's about just any provider who wants to, I mean, I appreciate being, want to be checked off on putting in a transvenous pacer and wanting to put in a swan with and without fluoro. And those things have to be done, but we've got to do it on people that are appropriate. You know, I remember specifically, I don't remember how many years ago.

Armando (39:36)
Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (39:37)
But somebody wanted to put, well, I have several examples. This is just one I'm just talking about, but this fellow wanted to put a transvenous pacer in this patient and it was 10 out of 10 inappropriate.

Armando (39:52)
It was just a learning opportunity for him. That's how he was thinking about it.

Kaleigh Slade (39:52)
I just

Yeah,

he was nearing the end of his fellowship and he wanted to put in this transvenous pacer in this patient. She was this sweet little old lady that it truly wasn't warranted. so, you know, I think that some people chomp at the bit is what we say down here at the South ⁓ to want to get their checkoffs or want to complete their

learning opportunities. Just make it appropriate. Make it, you know, it's one thing if you're truly trying to differentiate between septic and cardiogenic shock and we need that swan, but you know.

Armando (40:36)
Even sometimes the swans are a little bit controversial. But they do give you data though.

Kaleigh Slade (40:39)
Yeah.

Abigail Baugh (40:40)
Mm-hmm.

Kaleigh Slade (40:41)
Yeah.

I do. do.

Abigail Baugh (40:44)
they do.

Kaleigh Slade (40:46)
There certain physicians who want them more so than others and that's, and that's fine. I wish there was more of a non-invasive way that we use or that we could use here at our facility that would, but they argue that it's not very reliable.

Abigail Baugh (40:58)
There it is.

Armando (41:02)
the Vigileos

and all these other devices.

Kaleigh Slade (41:08)
Yeah.

but you know, there's times when yes, people just want practice or, ⁓ intubate someone's patient that's not theirs So that way they can do like, they can have another intubation. It's like, well, that provider has a rapport with that patient and that family already. So we should probably just take a minute, our ego aside, lot of ego in our world. ⁓

And just remember that it's a, ask yourself if you don't love your mom or you look or, know, appreciate your dad, it's like, okay, this is insert your favorite person. Is this what would need to be done to help my favorite person who's laying here in this bed?

You know, don't let it just be a box that you check.

Armando (41:58)
I'm going to piggyback on your thought though, because for example, you do have young trainees, nurse practitioners or PAs that they don't go through the extensive training that a nurse practitioner or a physician will go through and maybe have not calling the learning opportunities, but have the amount of volume to get skilled with many procedures. But I do want to say it matters a lot. How do you approach

Bringing a new trainee or someone else right to do a procedure or to do it with you Towards the patient right most often people say we're gonna do this. She's gonna do it I'm gonna be their supervisor. Are you okay with this and you know asking that person in that way? That's how we start dehumanizing people right because at that point, you know, the patient says well if I say no Maybe my physician won't like me. Then I just gotta say yes, right?

Kaleigh Slade (42:44)
Absolutely.

Armando (42:56)
So how do you approach and how do you plan this thing that maybe there's a trainee, maybe it happened to me, one of our PAs asked me, know, I haven't been doing too many TVPs and whatnot. And there was another patient that needed a TVP But, I didn't want to say and get concerned, I'm going to be there and she's going to do it. You know, I sort of talked to the patient and had to explain maybe another five minutes of me being in the room. Had to explain some sort of the process of medical education, right?

and put it in context that it's not that people are just coming in because this is another opportunity to do a TVP, it's because they also need to learn in order to help people in the future by themselves. So how do you present that to the patient? I think most of providers will fail on how to do that and just introduce some random patient, a random person into the patient care and say to what you're talking about is patients can feel

pretty pretty shocked when some random person just come in and starts taking stuff in their neck or anywhere. Communication is the number one problem that dehumanizes people and it's macro communication and micro communication and time time unfortunately is you know tied to communication and it's very easy for us to just

Kaleigh Slade (44:02)
Yeah, just communicate. That's it. You know, if it's someone else's page.

Abigail Baugh (44:06)
Mm-hmm.

Armando (44:22)
go, go, go and forget about even talking to people. I struggle. I don't think I will ever get as efficient as other of my colleagues who can't see 40 patients in clinic. I cannot because if I wouldn't do that, then I would just be treating people like numbers. So, you know, there's also a ⁓ pushback from providers. And when I see colleagues that don't push towards that, I do talk to them. I get them and try to tease out.

Why? Why would you want to see 40 patients and lower your patient care, your quality? Because someone tells you because you got to make money or X, and Z. I try to tease those things out from my colleagues to learn from them and to learn how humans behave, right? How people in power, AKA physicians and all of us, can really, really stop being themselves because of their work is just consuming them.

It's hard. We work in a profession, right? All of us will agree this is a hard profession, ⁓ but nonetheless a very noble profession ⁓ where we get to connect with people, you know?

Abigail Baugh (45:30)
Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (45:33)
Yeah, and people connect in different ways and show compassion in different ways to like for sure if I'm not busy And the patient is able to talk maybe their family's not there I want to talk to them like tell me where you live you got kids like you know what's going on? sometimes when you are busy doing life-saving things you don't have time or if they do have somebody in there who can visit and talk with them I'm like, I'm gonna let them do their thing, but maybe they don't see it. But if I may not be like

hugging them and loving on them and being woo woo but like you're saying I may not learn their whole life story and what their sign is and you know how their mom treat them and what was their prom dress color. They just word vomit back to me. I know I do it too. I'm just saying I may not give off that but like I'm calling the doctor. I'm advocating for them. I'm making sure they're getting their stuff on time like so everybody's doing things in different ways. Not everybody

Abigail Baugh (46:04)
I think you're woo woo.

Armando (46:04)
The woo woo. I'm gonna use that.

you

Abigail Baugh (46:17)
See you

But.

Kaleigh Slade (46:30)
is so

good, like it's different because nurses, they can start working when they're 22, right? Assuming they went or even 20, whatever they got to your degree or maybe 20. They don't know how to talk. Oh, for sure. Two people. Oh honey, yes. While they're trying to learn a difficult job, if they're in the ICU trying to, you know, do stuff, so you might have like these developmental

Abigail Baugh (46:52)
save a life.

Armando (46:54)
Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (46:59)
Barriers that are there just because they're simply not old enough. I mean their prefrontal cortex not okay, and then you have Physicians who are old enough because by the time they get there they've been through school for a long time but they don't have the ⁓ Personality to carry a conversation home training you say that in the south like Armando You and there and there were other people I've worked with that are physicians

Abigail Baugh (47:19)
Both. Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (47:27)
who are very personable and can have a conversation with somebody. But I have noticed over the maybe the past few years that the doctors seem very awkward. Like they don't know how to talk to people. Okay. So you know, Armando, I've told you, like, I just appreciate you as a physician. I appreciate you as a person. I think you are a beautiful human being. are just, you exude positivity. You want to learn.

Armando (47:55)
It's just...

Kaleigh Slade (47:56)
You're a fantastic human. You are great to your patients. are... Well, honey, you know, she just like, I don't give it if it's not warranted.

Abigail Baugh (48:00)
You're making Armando embarrassed. Don't worry, she does this to me too.

Armando (48:02)
I'm blushing, I'm blushing, I'm blushing.

I appreciate

it. And I, I do take your words very.

Kaleigh Slade (48:12)
But I don't, I think you are an anomaly. You know, I don't think everyone has your gift. You know, we all have gifts and maybe I just don't know the other people's gifts, but I'm referring to it in my brain. But you know, you've got to be able to pass your boards, know the content and be able to just be a kind person. And that doesn't mean being perfect. And that means you're going to mess up sometimes. ⁓ You're going to

make mistakes at work. You're going to make mistakes personally. But if you can just learn and grow from that, it's a beautiful thing. ⁓ Not everyone has both sides, both the intellectual side and have the bedside manner that you do. So.

Armando (49:00)
feel like many of my colleagues that are contemporary to me, age-wise, that I have spoken about these sort of topics, there's a big mention about shame, right? How shame can be so into you, right? Maybe for you not knowing what a high sensitivity troponing is, it's very shameful, right? And you start behaving in some ways. And I think the shame that a provider

needs to be explored and definitely not every provider I feel can admit that. As you said, you don't know everything, right?

Kaleigh Slade (49:39)
That's a huge barrier.

You have to be able to, you have to be willing to look in the mirror. You know, you can't overcompensate and exude all this extra confidence when you don't know what the high sensitivity troponin looks like or what the normals are or how, we use that versus there are old method. You know, it just, you have to be.

Abigail Baugh (49:57)
But I don't think

they're given that much grace though either. I think that there's older physicians that are training people and they don't give them the grace. Like there's fellows that I've had that are crying in our provider room because the physician talked down to them and having to build them up. So I do think that they're not given that grace and so.

Kaleigh Slade (50:00)
Now...

Abigail Baugh (50:25)
They're not only building, I've seen it, they're not only building the wall with the patients because they don't want to get emotionally attached to the patients, but they're building the wall outside of the patient room. They're building the wall, you know, I have to be at this level because if I'm not, I'm going to be torn right down.

Armando (50:43)
I 100 % agree

on that statement, I had mentors that the first thing that they would ask me wasn't like, how is the patient doing? He's like, how do you feel treating this patient? That was their question. I was like, feel what? Does it matter how I feel? Well, it does matter a lot, as we can come up to know about all of these conversations.

Abigail Baugh (50:56)
Okay.

Yeah.

Armando (51:06)
I do agree with that statement, 100%. I feel as a provider, And I think whoever trains you, it does have a big impact in you. And I remember as a young trainee, Dr. would just, the first thing was to say hi to everyone in the room, right? And patients who couldn't speak for themselves, then the next question would be to say,

Who is this? And as a patient, who is that person? How is mom? What does mom does? Does she works? What does she likes to do for fun? Even before talking about, it's here for pneumonia, have AKI, or whatnot, whatnot, I feel that first five minutes that you walk in a room, even a nurse or physician, you can create some sort of personal ⁓ conversation outside of medicine.

That's already 15, 20 % into a good report. So say hi to people. You're going to see me. I go in, and the first thing that I do, there's 20 people. I say hi to everyone, ask their names. And sometimes you flow with the fact of how people respond to you, the cousin or the niece responding in a way that you can maybe throw a joke or just try to get very familiar, very familiar from the get-go.

Kaleigh Slade (51:57)
That's huge for sure.

Abigail Baugh (52:24)
Yeah, I do want to say though, it was interesting. Like, Kaleigh also, I think, right in a way, I think we need to explore why, but there was, it was either Washington Post or New York Times, one of those, ⁓ but they actually wrote an article a year, maybe two now, ⁓ about how they were finding med students and residents were using AI to teach them compassion, that they were.

Kaleigh Slade (52:53)
Oof.

Armando (52:54)
That's interesting.

Abigail Baugh (52:54)
Yeah.

But like they were, you know, they apparently were getting this feedback and so they were using AI as kind of like their how do I how do I communicate with this patient compassionately? Like, what do I say? And so I do think some of for some of us, it's a skill that we need to learn. And I don't think it's taught. And I think, again, when you're in

Kaleigh Slade (52:57)
Seems like such a...

sure.

.

Abigail Baugh (53:24)
Medical training it's so intense. It's so you know at this point in medicine It's the best of the best in med school. You know, it's hard to get into med school. It's expensive So you you cut they build these walls early is my point, but I also want to say I think Kaleigh right We have seen it and there's articles that proves that that they're addressing they're trying to address it, but need help

Kaleigh Slade (53:47)
I part of that,

I haven't read the article, ⁓ but just from living in the world, when we were growing up, you had to call and talk to people. You had to go to the store. You didn't do a lot of stuff online. was face to face conversation. And we had to learn how to talk to people. also, and you know, I can only speak as a woman, ⁓ Armando is an anomaly, I think, among a lot of our male counterparts.

Armando (54:12)
Ha ha!

Kaleigh Slade (54:15)
Growing up as girls For whatever reason there's lots of reasons, but I think we're better at reading other people's emotions ⁓ Facial expressions taking in demeanors, even though we don't even realize we're doing it and learning how we need to respond in a way that is quote unquote good acceptable. ⁓ don't get me started. How can I fit in with this? ⁓

Abigail Baugh (54:15)
You

Kaleigh Slade (54:46)
right here keeps you safe to keep us safe. ⁓ So I and a lot of nurses are women's and nurses are at the bedside more with the patient. So I do think that, you know, we are working on our communication skills, our bedside manner a lot more even when it's not like an active thing because we're just in there so much and even still a lot more of the physicians are male. So I think there's multiple barriers in place for

doctors and physicians that they don't even know that they have sometimes and it's tough. mean, I, feel for them. ⁓ it's to work on that. And also, like you said, you gotta get your skills on. You have to get your check off. You have to know what you're doing because yes, obviously we want to talk to our patients and families and have good rapport. But when things are going down, I don't need you to be sitting there for 10 minutes talking about that. At that point, I need you to save the patient. So yeah.

Armando (55:22)
It comes with training.

Kaleigh Slade (55:44)
It's hard to do at all. Like it really is. There's not enough time probably.

Armando (55:50)
He's not gonna get easier, neither.

Abigail Baugh (55:55)
I think what I've loved most about this are these, as we kind of keep touching on these micro communications, right? Like if we are using these small moments to communicate that we do see you as a human, remind ourselves that this is a human in those, we need to save your life right now. That isn't all that the patient is experiencing. And I have, yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (56:17)
That's right.

Yes, that's right.

Armando (56:22)
I

know we're talking about patients, also from the physician side of things, it's very easy also to dehumanize the nurses, right? You can go in and give me this, give me that, give me this, and this and that. And I always thought, well, the nurse put the socks on. I could put the socks on too. There should not be any barrier, right?

Abigail Baugh (56:47)
Thank

Armando (56:50)
Again, you're treating the patient like family. Wouldn't you do the same to grandma or mom or brother, right?

Kaleigh Slade (56:54)
Ooh, you're gonna get burnt up, You mean you can

get him a cup of ice water? You mean that you're not gonna sit in there and push the call bell to say that the patient needs some ice? You're gonna go in there and you're gonna go get the ice?

Armando (57:04)
That's pretty crazy. That's pretty crazy.

Abigail Baugh (57:04)
You

Armando (57:08)
It's a team sport, right? ICU is a very team sport in the sense that all of us get together and patients improve, right? I cannot do my work without y'all. Definitely cannot do it. But it's very also that in training, we don't get thought about recognizing even the staff. Like the other day, someone was cleaning the environmental services. They were just mopping and...

Kaleigh Slade (57:11)
at it.

Armando (57:34)
How often these people get a thanks? I mean, sure, they're hired, they're getting paid for it, that's your job, whatever. But I get thank you from patients, I get thank you from nurses, right, for doing some things. And what about these folks that are cleaning the floor? know, so that people also need recognition to some way, right? And just passing by, say, hey, thank you for cleaning the floor. That's all, you don't gotta do too much. So we dehumanize not just the patient in institutional environments, we sometimes dehumanize other coworkers and staff.

Kaleigh Slade (57:50)
yeah.

You do. You have to remember that everyone, we can't serve these patients without everybody. You know, we can't clean the room. We can't fix, we can't be bio med. We can't be plan ops. We can't be EVS. can't, we have to have everyone in order to serve these patients. And

Armando (58:04)
So I think, yeah.

and plausible.

Kaleigh Slade (58:27)
You know, stripping down a room before EVS gets there just to make their job a little bit easier if you have some downtime. Little things are big things. Thanking Ms. Lynn, you know, she's the best and thanking her for what she does. You know, because she goes in and you know, she has a little bit of you in her Armando.

Armando (58:42)
Thanks

Kaleigh Slade (58:52)
you know, just making that connection point with the patient. And maybe the patient doesn't feel like talking and she kind of gets in there and does her own thing and gets out. But it's just no matter what job you have in that hospital, just remembering that some, everyone has somebody, somebody and treating them that way. And even the staff, cause we're like, you're saying like we're, and it's not just nurses, it's care partners. It's everybody. We are all humans. We all have our own stuff going on personally. We all have to show up.

at work with large life events going on behind the scenes and we're supposed to act like nothing's going on. So that way we can take care of these patients. It's just a little thing goes a long way. A thank you, intentional connection, giving someone a warm blanket, wiping away a tear like Kaleigh did yesterday, believe it or not. Believe it or not. You know, a little things are.

Armando (59:46)
Well, those are the little things, right?

Kaleigh Slade (59:51)
big things. I say thank you to everybody who goes in the room. You dropping off the tray off thanks. Oh for sure. I may not have a convert like a full-on conversation moment. Thank you. Yeah like I'm sure a little thing because we don't get thank yous a lot. You know what's a small thing that people do this is about to be a rant that bothers me and it's always bothered me is when I'm getting report from somebody and the patient might have like a complicated name

Abigail Baugh (59:56)
Mm-hmm.

like Amanda.

Mm-mm.

Armando (1:00:08)
you

Kaleigh Slade (1:00:17)
And they won't even try to say it. I'm like, well, you've been here for 12 hours. Why didn't you learn how to save the patient's name? It pisses me off. It pisses me off. like, you've taken care of this patient for 12 hours and you couldn't bother to learn how to pronounce their name? I don't know why, but it's just one of those things are like when you round and they're like, okay, let's talk about room 33. It's like,

Abigail Baugh (1:00:32)
Mm-hmm.

Kaleigh Slade (1:00:41)
this is Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. So-and-so. It's like one of those small things that's always bothered me maybe because when I was growing up people couldn't pronounce my name but I'm like, it bop. I think it goes along with this. I'm like you're, you can't even bother to name the patient's name right.

Armando (1:00:55)
I pronounce

names wrong all the time.

Kaleigh Slade (1:00:58)
We know, baby. It's not about pronouncing

Abigail Baugh (1:01:00)
That's okay.

Kaleigh Slade (1:01:00)
it wrong. It's about taking the time to try to figure it out. You're trying. You know what mean? Or just, I'm not even gonna try to say it. I'm not even gonna...

Armando (1:01:04)
But again, correct.

Abigail Baugh (1:01:05)
Okay.

Armando (1:01:08)
At least I say it wrong. Sometimes I even ask people, I know I'm going to be saying it wrong. Just correct me, right?

Kaleigh Slade (1:01:15)
tell me how to say it I'm so

sorry like to just not even try I'm like right it bothers me and that's one of those little things I'm like you can take two seconds and figure this out anyway sorry mini rant over

Armando (1:01:20)
you

I think also, just to sort of talk a little bit about medicine with this topic is all of these things that we can do to humanize people ultimately help with the delirium too, by the way. Get the family picture, then open the blinds. Well, those are things that on a normal day you will do. You'll go out, see the daylight, maybe run into a picture of your mom or dad, walk into your home.

Abigail Baugh (1:01:26)
You

Armando (1:01:54)
So those are things that we do for delirium precautions, but they also align with humanizing the patient. And all these little things that we've been talking about, they help with delirium as well, and ⁓ early mobility. Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (1:02:06)
What show do they like to watch? Put it on the TV. Yeah. Yeah.

Abigail Baugh (1:02:08)
Yeah. ⁓

Kaleigh Slade (1:02:10)
That's a little sweet little all men. The music. The Western. What music they like. know. Mm hmm. Little things.

Abigail Baugh (1:02:15)
Mm-hmm.

Armando (1:02:15)
Christmas carols, I

haven't done any so long, again, back in residency, we used to go singing Christmas carols to people in the hospital with a guitar and stuff, little things like that, right?

Kaleigh Slade (1:02:28)
Of you did that. Somebody does

that. Somebody does that at our hospital. They come around and sing Christmas carols. I don't know who it is.

Abigail Baugh (1:02:34)
Mm-hmm.

Armando (1:02:34)
They actually do. And it's a big crew. It's like a bunch of kids.

Abigail Baugh (1:02:36)
Dr.

Yeah, it's all the doctors kids. It's a bunch of attendings and then their kids that they make play violin and viola. It was nice though. It was sweet. Well, any final thoughts?

Armando (1:02:41)
Yeah.

Kaleigh Slade (1:02:46)
Whoops.

Armando (1:02:49)
Well, peace.

I do have a final thought. do have a final thought. going back to the meaning in life, my meaning triangle, something that I learned early in my career, that you want to find meaning in life, right? You need to ask yourself pretty much three questions, pretty much every day too, or any time. It's what I give to life through my creativity, right? What do I give to life? What I receive from my life through experiences.

the stance that I take, right, towards life through my attitude. You can always ask those questions maybe once a week or once a month, but truly, truly reflecting on that, right? Not saying that living for your children is meaningful. It is meaningful, but once your children are grown and live home and have their own life, then you have this emptiness in you, right? So is it that truly, truly a meaning in life or just just being a great mom and a good mom and, know,

being good for your ⁓ offspring, right, for your kids. But those three questions, what I give to life through my creativity, what I receive from life through my experiences, and the stance that I take toward life through my attitudes. I think that's a five minute prescription for you all to think about every week.

Abigail Baugh (1:04:15)
We'll have to turn that into a diagram to put on our social medias.

Kaleigh Slade (1:04:15)
I think.

Very good. Yeah. just a reminder, just the little things are big things at work, outside of work. ⁓ Just do the little things, you know, and get your work done, do the things you need to do, but do the little things in the meantime, for sure.

Abigail Baugh (1:04:22)
as.

Armando (1:04:28)
Little things make a lot of change. That's true.

Abigail Baugh (1:04:28)
Yeah.

Armando (1:04:34)
.

People need

to watch Patch Adams too, the movie that Robin Williams did. I feel every doctor, there's some movies that you should watch as a doctor when you grow up, when you're information. Patch Adams is probably one of those where, where, where laughter and smiling. Oh man, Abby is going to change. It's going to change. It's a great movie. It's a great movie. It's a beautiful movie. It has a strong meaning in regards to that patient, physician relationship.

Kaleigh Slade (1:04:52)
Oh, it's so good. I was gonna say, I hadn't even heard of that, Abby.

Abigail Baugh (1:04:53)
I don't think I've seen that one.

I am younger than all of you.

Kaleigh Slade (1:04:58)
it's a good one. It is a beautiful movie.

Armando (1:05:10)
you

Kaleigh Slade (1:05:11)
I think you know just treat others the way you want to be treated. ⁓ You don't have to be their therapist, but you can give them some time and just even when it's hard we have to do try to treat other people the way we want to be treated.

Armando (1:05:26)
Just also think

about that you are as a provider and as a nurse, you have a privilege to take care of these people. Definitely, hospital is not prison. Obviously, people might not be able to leave because they're sick. But our care for patients starts with admitting that this is a privilege to take care of people. This is not just a given thing, or I'm a doctor, I do what I do. No, it's not like that. That's how we start losing the humanistic.

Kaleigh Slade (1:05:49)
That's right.

Armando (1:05:54)
aspect of patients on our care. But like every time, every time, just try to be human. You are all humans first. I was Armando before I was doctor. And I will always be Armando. And that will never change.

Kaleigh Slade (1:06:06)
That's right.

Yes. Yeah.

That's right.

Abigail Baugh (1:06:17)
Well, this has been a very touching and beautiful episode. We thank you both for coming and joining us and bringing this topic to us. I don't know if we would have come to it without you guys. So we do appreciate that. If you made it through the episode, make sure you like, follow, leave a comment, leave your ways that you humanize patients for Armando and Amanda to talk about. We'll probably talk about this on a further episode or future episode.

So make sure you follow along from all of us shift talkers here at Banter at the bedside. Thanks. Bye.

Kaleigh Slade (1:06:54)
Bye.