Make a Difference Winner

Michael joined the Crothall Patient Transportation Team at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore almost one year ago. Following in his father’s footsteps (his dad works for UMH in the EVS Dept.), he wanted to join a team that would allow him to make a difference in the lives of the people he encountered every day. Little did he know just how big of a difference he would make for one patient in particular.

Michael received a call to transport a patient from the 9th floor to the Dialysis Unit for treatment. Dialysis patients rank among Michael’s favorite transports because they are “regulars.”“You get to form a relationship with them because you see them so often,” he says.

The woman that he was to transport on this day was usually an outgoing, friendly person who loved to chat while moving from one area of the hospital to another. However, as soon as Michel entered her room, he knew that something wasn’t right. She didn’t seem to recognize him, nor did she do more than grunt in response to his greeting. After helping her into the wheelchair, Michael knelt in front of her and tried again to connect with, and get a response from, the patient.

It was at this point that his instincts told him not to make the transport without talking with one of the nurses on the unit first. Michael summoned a nurse who shared with him that the patient had been behaving this way for most of the day, but agreed to put Michael’s mind at ease and check on her prior to her trip to the Dialysis Unit.

As Michael and the nurse entered the patient’s room, she went into cardiac arrest. The nurse sprang into action and within minutes the woman was being cared for by the appropriate teams and transported to ICU for further treatment and an eventual positive outcome. If Michael hadn’t listened to his instincts, this patient could have had a much different experience, not to mention a much less positive outcome.

“Every day when I come to work, I try to do the best that I can by everyone that I meet,” Michael says. “I am always thankful that it isn’t a member of my family sitting in that chair needing some kind of care. But I treat each patient as if they were, because it is how I would want my loved one to be treated.”