Today we were able to tour the Austral University hospital and get a more tangible feel to the healthcare provided. Yesterday we learned that part of the mission statement of the Medical Center is that they are in the “pursuit of truth and a culture of life,” so we were also able today to see how they applied this.
In regard to the pursuit of truth, I believe that means they will try to do the best by their patients particularly in utilizing the best technology there is to offer. The hospital offers ECMO, which is a very last resort, though lifesaving piece of equipment that essentially functions as both the lungs and the heart by drawing blood out of the body, oxygenating it, and pumping it back it. Additionally, the hospital provides organ transplants. One of the surgeons we were able to talk to was mentored by the man who began organ transplants at the University of Pittsburgh many years ago!
Walking around, particularly in the pediatric areas, there were paintings of animals on the walls. Drawings done by former patients lined the outside of patient rooms. The ceiling of the pediatric emergency department had stars, planets, and space ships. However, the most touching by far was a bulletin board outside of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The board consisted of some before and many after pictures of babies who were treated in the NICU. What was so beautiful about these pictures, besides the obvious smiling babies with the chunkiest cheeks I have ever seen, were the notes written by parents. While I could not understand it all, I very quickly noticed that they all began by addressing the nursing as tios and tias, or uncles and aunts. Before we had gotten to the NICU, the nurse who was gracious enough to give us the tour mentioned that they are very close with their patients and that in the NICU they try to operate at a 1:1 or 1:2 nurse to patient ratio and they are very family centered. However, I did not comprehend just how close she meant. In a NICU, families are often there for extended periods of time as babies need time to develop, which takes.. well time. Because I am interested in potentially becoming a NICU nurse, people often say to me that “it’s just so hard” or “why would you want to do something so sad.” But people never discuss how incredibly rewarding it is and how you develop such strong bonds with these families. Seeing this in action truly showed to me that Austral was striving to achieve the culture of life, because life is people and connections and family.