A Moment with Melissa: Reflecting on Two Years at St. Joe's
I’ve rounded past my second anniversary at St. Joe’s. Last year at this time, I shared what I’d learned about Hamilton in my inaugural year, from the community’s courage through uncertainty to its collaborative spirit and ability to come together during a crisis.
Indulge me, as I reflect back, and humbly recount what St. Joe's staff, physicians and learners have taught me through this most grueling, unrelenting, and amazing second year.
Resourcefulness
St. Joe's taught me that resourcefulness will navigate a path forward through an uncertain future and rapid change. In the first wave, we worked with our community partners to set up COVID-19 assessment centres while driving home the message to “flatten the curve.” We also increased acute medicine capacity and worked directly with community partners such as long-term care homes and primary care to support our most vulnerable seniors. We also created new hospital capacity and care delivery processes to support COVID care, and established new approaches to working with our community partners.
During the second wave, we created new virtual care options for patients and families and collaborated with public health to operationalize mass vaccination clinics. We also deployed teams into congregate settings to work alongside our community partners and primary care to support our seniors.
Today, through the fatigue of more than a year of challenges, we’re increasing ICU capacity to more than double its original size and staffing, redeploying staff to new roles, and adapting hospital clinical operations throughout the organization – all to ensure the sickest COVID patients get the care they need.
Digging deep
I’m consistently impressed by how the St. Joe’s community can rally in the face of adversity. Over and over and over again, you have continued to reach down and find strength to support your patients and one another. Many of us are feeling exhausted, but when I see St. Joe’s staff putting one foot in front of the other, I’m confident that we will get through this.
Lean on your team
Equally important as finding inner strength, I’ve also learned a lot from St. Joe's about teamwork and leaning on colleagues. No one should feel alone and I encourage everyone to reach out for help when they need it.
Adversity strengthens bonds among team members. I’ve witnessed it across the organization, and I’ve felt it personally among my close colleagues.
Surviving loss
Harnessing inner strength and leaning on one another is crucial, but so is taking a moment to acknowledge loss. Losing patients — and helping family members cope with this loss —is a significant challenge that many members of our community face.
As everyone struggles with the emotional long-haul of the pandemic, we’ve also lost time with our own families, are missing a sense of joy and fun, and may be feeling a loss of momentum forward.
We will also all carry the weight of what we have experienced for a long time post this pandemic. I will certainly carry the burden of the decisions we have had to make expediently and with imperfect data and information.
Kindness and forgiveness
Compassionate care is the cornerstone of St. Joe’s and I’m privileged to bear witness to our staff living this mission every day. I truly believe that the culture at St. Joe’s is built on kindness and — in spite of tremendous challenge — our community consistently lives our values of respect and dignity.
Alongside kindness is forgiveness. Thank you for teaching me the need to forgive one another — and ourselves — for those times when the pandemic has been overwhelming and kindness was not the first response.
I am deeply grateful for these lessons that the St. Joe’s community has taught me. I encourage everyone to take a moment to acknowledge the courage, commitment, and contributions of healthcare workers across the organization.
As a community, we have opportunity to say a collective thank you expressly to groups through recognition days in April and May: National Volunteer Week (April 19-23), Administrative Professionals Day (April 28), National Day of Mourning (April 28), National Physiotherapy Month (May), National Physicians’ Day (May 1), International Midwives' Day (May 5), Nursing Week (May 10-14), Indigenous Nurses Day (May 14), World Family Doctor Day (May 19), and Personal Support Worker Day (May 19), among others. The work of this hospital happens because of all of you. It is you that makes St. Joe’s so special.
As I embark on my third year at St. Joe’s, I remain committed to listening to, learning from, and supporting this incredible team across our entire organization.