As we celebrate Nursing Week, and prepare to celebrate Hospital Week, I want to share a story that one of our nurses shared with me during last week’s Employee Recognition Celebration.  The nurse, who works in our NICU, told me about a very touching scene that she had observed.  Looking out of the windows from the NICU she noticed two of our nurses walking with and supporting, a frail elderly patient through the rose garden.  She could tell that this patient was really enjoying herself while she strolled through the garden.  At one point the patient stopped and lea

Hospitals are just noisy places – there’s no doubt about it! Physicians and employees are hard at work and at times seem to be unaware of how they are contributing to the noisy environment.  We’ll always have an endless parade of visitors creating noisy activity. When I walked the halls of our hospital this morning I listened to the noise buzzing around me - medical equipment beeping, cell phones, pagers, people talking loudly– some were visitors, but most were staff and residents talking loudly to one another as they hustled up and down the hallway.