From a patient to health care workers: Always remember your humanity [PODCAST]

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“Always remember your humanity. You are not super-human. Make connections to your heart, to your mind, to others. Look closely at the situation that lies before you, listen carefully to all that is around you, and calm the pounding heart.

Dig deep within your psyche, ask the big questions, and most importantly, listen to the answers. Rediscover the reasons that have been your motivation, your driving force. Uncover those layers you have put in place for your protection to cushion against the harshness. Open your eyes. Open your heart. Your lifeline is within your grasp. This lifeline is tethered to your core, to those you care for, to those who care for you.

Once lost, you are now found. You are at equilibrium. You have found your way back.”

Michele Luckenbaugh is a patient advocate.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “A message from a patient to health care workers: Always remember your humanity.”

This episode is sponsored by Tradeoffs, available on your favorite podcast platform.

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show, we welcome back Michele Luckenbaugh. She is a patient advocate, and she wrote the KevinMD article “A message from a patient to health care workers: Always remember your humanity.” Michele, welcome back to the show.

Michele Luckenbaugh: Thank you, Kevin. It’s great to be here today.

Kevin Pho: So for those who didn’t get a chance to listen to our first episode together, can you briefly share your story and journey to where you are today?

Michele Luckenbaugh: As a patient advocate, how I got into that area specifically was back about 10 years ago, I suffered a heart attack. Once I got through that experience, I felt the need to join patient advocacy groups. So I belong to a few. Briefly: Patient Partners, which is an organization where our members give feedback to the health systems that we’re members of, either our experiences dealing with a family practice office or other services that the health system provides for us.

I’m also a member of a patient and family advisory council related specifically to cardiovascular issues, and again, over the years, we’ve contributed numerous improvements to the care of the cardiac patient when hospitalized. Most recently, we gave feedback on the construction of a new cardiovascular building, which I’m happy to give the update today was opened this spring and is fully operational.

And then lastly, I’m a member of our local heart patient support, Helping Hearts, where we do give support and encouragement to all of our members. We do have educational sessions where we bring in cardiologists, heart surgeons, and dietitians: all issues related to the heart, maintaining a healthy heart. As part of that membership, I visited heart patients when they were placed in the hospital for procedures, either visits pre- or post-procedure, just to give them support and encouragement and impress upon them the fact that when they are discharged from the hospital, there’s a life there waiting for them that can be, in fact, better than what they had previously.

Kevin Pho: You’ve written so many articles to my clinician audience from a patient perspective. Why do you think it’s important for clinicians to hear these stories and viewpoints from the patient perspective?

Michele Luckenbaugh: In the relationship between physicians, nurses, and others involved in health care professions, I consider that we form a partnership, and eventually what affects you will trickle down to the care of the patients. So in a way, the voice that I use in some of my articles tends to be not only directly concerned with patients, but with some of the issues that you all are dealing with in carrying out your professions in health care. So there is a strong relationship.

Not everybody necessarily agrees with that. I know sometimes, as a physician, you get the negative viewpoint of some patients. But I think if we were to take a survey, overall, we place our lives in your hands, and that requires a certain amount of trust and respect.

Kevin Pho: All right, let’s talk now about your KevinMD article that you wrote. It’s titled “A message from a patient to health care workers: Always remember your humanity.” Now, for those of you who get a chance to read your article, can you just walk my audience through it and share the story of why you decided to write it?

Michele Luckenbaugh: Well, I’ve been a follower of your site, Kevin, probably since the time I had my heart attack. I’ve been reading the articles that have been written by physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals, and I’ve noticed over the last few years there’s kind of been a change somewhat in the tone of many of the articles. I sense a bit of anger, a bit of frustration, sadness, and despair. I think many times it comes from feeling that you don’t have a voice in the work environment that you work in.

Certainly the onslaught of COVID didn’t make matters any better. Those of you who have been working on the front lines, present or past, are at the point of almost sheer exhaustion, especially for those individuals who, you find, in your eyes, to use, have ignored getting vaccinated and wearing masks. Sometimes they can leave the hospital. More often than not, unfortunately, they pass away.

So I felt the need to do this topic. I came across this statement the other day, and it kind of summarizes, I think, the general feeling across health care. It says, “Here’s to another day of outward smiles and inward screams.” That speaks volumes to me.

Probably some of your audience would question why on earth someone like me, a patient, would be trying to give advice to those of you who are in health care. Well, I might mention that one of my children is a family medicine physician, and some of my friends are physicians or nurses, so I’ve had a chance to see a bit of what it is to sit on the other side of the desk. I certainly don’t presume to know how it is to walk in your shoes, but I get a sense of some of the issues that you all have to face.

Put it this way: I’ve lived several decades of life, and in that time period, I’ve had different health crises come up, and I’ve had to come up with solutions to kind of get me through them or around them. Those are some of the things that I eventually would like to share with your viewers today.

Kevin Pho: So why don’t we go ahead? Share some of those lessons that you’ve learned over the past few decades that would resonate with my clinician audience.

Michele Luckenbaugh: Well, as that one key word in the title says, remember your humanity. To put it in simple terms, we’re all human beings. Even though sometimes your patients might kind of put you up on a platform, that you should be able to fix anything, any illness, any disease, the reality is, again, you are human beings. Even though you try your darndest based on your experience, your education, and your training, there are some situations, some individuals, that cannot be healed and, unfortunately, maybe pass away. So this is a reality that you need to deal with and can come to terms with and hopefully move on.

Another thing is, and many of us will do this, you tend to compartmentalize your life. You try to separate your workday from your family life, and generally speaking, that works out to a certain extent. But have you ever found yourself in a situation where you lie down, put your head down on your pillow, close your eyes, try to fall off to sleep, and then you have a replay of those hardships, those problems that you faced during the course of the day?

Here’s where a second, or an additional, lesson comes up: Have a support system in place for yourself. For example, a support system may be formed by fellow colleagues within your hospital or your practice, where you can discuss those issues, those stressors that cause you the anxiety. The simple action of this sharing can help alleviate that stress level and potentially maybe come up with remedies to them.

You might say, “Well, I don’t have anything like that that exists at present.” Take the action to form one. You might be surprised how easy it is to come up with a group of fellow colleagues who are willing. As the saying goes, two heads are better than one. And just the simple fact of getting this anxiety, this stress, this anger off your chest does work wonders at times. Your support system can also be your partner or spouse or trusted friends, anyone that you can place your trust in and have a direct and honest conversation with.

This other one, I think we always tell our children, in regards to telling white lies. You know, “What’s the big deal? White lies don’t hurt anything,” in the long view, or viewpoint, of life. But the most important point I want to make is: Don’t tell these lies to yourself. In other words, face those fears, those potential weaknesses that you consider, and set about to find solutions and find remedies to them, again referring back to that support system for potential assistance along those lines.

This other point I learned probably about the time I had the heart attack, and it was: If you were told that you had only 24 hours to live, what would be those people, those activities, that would come into your mind? For the most part, those are the people, those are the activities, that bring you the most joy, the most self-satisfaction. And as busy professionals, sometimes they get placed in the background. What I’m asking you all to do is bring them to the forefront, because they can serve as those lifelines, so to speak, for you, to get you in touch with your inner self, the true self. That’s someone that you never want to lose sight of.

I did a little research, as I usually do, online, and I came up with some information in regards to a very well-known Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl. As your viewers know, he was imprisoned for a period of years under horrible conditions, but he survived emotionally. He kept a positive attitude, which amazes me. One particular statement I came across, and I’ll read it. He says, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude, to choose one’s own way.”

That attitude is, in my mind, the beginning and end of everything: the attitude which you bring forth to face any important life situation, any crisis in your life. I’m going to use myself as a personal example. Back 10 years ago, when I had the heart attack, it was like a rug was just pulled out from under my feet, and I said, “How on earth am I going to get back the life that I had planned to live?” For a short period of time, I kind of wallowed in just that wonderment. And I said, “You know what? I’m going to do everything in my power to get back my life.” With the help of my doctors, family, and friends, I did do that. I did recover emotionally and physically.

But then, as life works its wondrous ways, three years later, I was informed that I was to have surgically removed what was a very suspicious thyroid, suspicious in terms of cancer. At the same time, the same surgical time, I was to have a very, very diseased gallbladder, which actually turned out to be the more involved of the two surgeries. But the point is, again, I found myself down in the basement, so to speak. I had put in all that earlier effort and work, got myself physically and mentally fit, and now I was more or less in a similar position. That took a little wherewithal, but I realized I wasn’t a quitter, and I was going to do, again, everything within my power to get back what I had attained previously. Again, through my doctors and those around me, I was able to do that. So again, the attitude that you bring to any life situation is very valuable.

Speaking of that mental attitude, we’ve heard the term burnout, physician burnout, nurse burnout, being bannered about continually, especially the last five to 10 years. And you hear the term resiliency in the same breath: “You need to be more resilient.” To put it in slang terms, “Deal with it. It’s not as bad as what you think.” Now, I’m not discounting the characteristic of being resilient. It is helpful in all situations. But at least in my opinion, you all are resilient people, just from the simple fact that you endured all the training and education which you had to go through to attain the positions that you are in. So again, in my opinion, it’s going to take a bit more than resiliency to fix what’s wrong in our health care systems, and that issue needs to be addressed.

Lastly, I guess one of my last life lessons, so to speak, is to ask yourself the big questions, but more importantly, to listen to the answers that you give yourself. This is where it’s important not to tell yourself, again, those little white lies. Be honest with yourself. Use your voice to potentially share those concerns with others. Use your voice to hopefully bring about solutions and remedies to the health systems that employ you.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Michele Luckenbaugh. She is a patient advocate, and she wrote the KevinMD article “A message from a patient to health care workers: Always remember your humanity.” Michele, thank you so much for sharing those life lessons. I was wondering if you had a take-home message that you want to leave my KevinMD audience with.

Michele Luckenbaugh: I would first divide it into two parts. To the doctors and nurses, I would say you deserve to feel joy, to be happy, to feel satisfaction in a job well done. You deserve that and so much more. But at the same time, your patients deserve to have the best possible version of you sitting or standing before them. So again, I ask you to make use of those support systems and to use your voice to bring about needed changes that need to take place in the systems that we are all members of.

To the health administrators, I would say: Come to realize the true value of those highly skilled professionals that you employ. They are not simply cogs in that corporate machine. Listen to their concerns, but more importantly, act upon them, so that when they come into work, they’re feeling energized rather than feeling more or less beleaguered and in despair. If this can be performed, then those physicians and those nurses can actually do the primary task that they were assigned, and that is healing and comforting the sick. And again, if changes are made, we’re all going to be the benefactors of it.

Kevin Pho: Michele, thank you so much for sharing your time and insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Michele Luckenbaugh: Thank you, Kevin.

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