Has a healthcare professional ever made a lasting impression on you - for good?

[Thisisit777]

What good thing has a HP ever done for you?

Me - a kind midwife persevered with me in labour ward - I couldn’t breastfeed and was crying buckets. Meant a lot as she treated me well despite me being a snivelling mess.

You?

I have so many to list but the one that sticks in my mind at the moment.

Had my first heart check up since having my youngest . I sit down and the consultant asks me how my daughters are. I burst in to tears as a week before that placement orders had been granted for the girls to be adopted. She was so kind and patient and she is great doctor .

Love these stories 😊

The on-call doctor who saw us when DS was admitted with a burst appendix. It had not presented in the usual manner and he was the 4th doctor to see DS (fortunately the 3rd has realised there was an issue and sent us to hospital), the only one who knew what it was.

It was a difficult situation as we were all jet-lagged, DS was very ill, I had nothing with us. He was so calm and reassuring throughout the 10 days we needed to be in hospital. He talked to us as people, not just as parents of a patient. We asked for honest advice and he gave it. He treated DS with great respect when he brought every junior doctor he could find to see DS, tell us that he wanted as many doctors as possible to see the case. He didn’t want another child to need to see so many people before getting tfe correct treatment.

The nurses who cared for DS and talked him into having his injections, which had to be delivered through a machine and lasted for 20 minutes at a time and caused great pain. Not an easy task with a screaming, vomiting 3 year old. They found me a hospital gown to sleep in and a parent kit to freshen up with until DH remembered I needed clothes too. They left me to sleep in an un-needed hospital bed when jet-lag and being up all night finally overcame me on day 3, caring for DS and watching videos with him while I slept.

Amazing professionals, all of them.

So many, most of them in resus and ICU. Two stand out though, both from the same admission:

I was blue lighted in with the first bout of anaphylaxis I actually remember, anyone who's experienced it knows it's utterly terrifying. The doctor who took charge was brilliant, I know now how quickly action has to be taken in order to keep me alive but I didn't then, he never seemed to rush! Somehow he made everything ok; I recall very little of what was said around me but I remember him looking right at me and saying 'you don't need to worry, that my job'. He's an A&E consultant now (wasn't a consultant then) and specialises on paediatric A&E.

I regained consciousness a few days later in PICU; I was terrified, disoriented and trying to fight - nothing made sense and I couldn't understand what any of the noise around me meant. This 'thing' - that actually turned out to be a junior doctor but didn't register as human at the time - was looming over me and I lashed out, I clocked him straight in the nose. Once the world was making sense again I was really upset that I'd hurt him, the nurse looking after me mopped up my tears and told me it wasn't my fault and I wasn't the first to wake up with a fight response. Many years later, walking into PICU to be with my DD who had had a very severe anaphylactic reaction, that same nurse was in the room but this time wearing the uniform of a sister. I saw her brush my daughter's hair out of her face and I remembered the gesture so clearly, her dedication to her patients was still so clear!

Nurses in SCBU who taught me to breastfeed, so patient and persistent in a the right ways. I don't know how I would have managed if my son had been on the wards.

The midwife who did my sweep at home when I was 40+8. I told her the I was worried that I'd be pushed towards an induction. She said that if anyone started pressuring me into anything I didn't want I should ring her and pass the phone over and she'd tell them where to go on my behalf. Made me feel so supported and listened to.

My last dentist. I went to her after having had really bad previous experiences, being phobic and not having seen a dentist in a decade. I was very embarrassed about the state of my teeth. She was so nice and non-judgemental, and after I told her my history she made sure to explain everything she was going to do before she did it, even though it took longer.

She's retired now, but it's because of her that I'm able to go to the dentist regularly and haven't had more problems with my teeth.

My midwife Vicky at the John Radcliffe in Oxford. I had the pregnancy from hell with HG and she was so kind and absolutely hilarious. It turned out that the epidural hadn't worked but Vicky was so lovely I didn't really notice. I was so sad when her shift ended and she went home but I saw her the next day and got to introduce her to my DD. DH loved her too. I want to send her some flowers on DD's first birthday, would that be weird?

An A and E nurse called Davina who triaged me when I attended with a broken ankle. I was only two weeks out of the same hospital following surgery and a terrible experience and I had a panic attack whilst being triaged. She kept me in that room and sat with me, holding my hand and talking me through my breathing until I calmed down. Then she went and got me a cup of tea and told me I could stay in the room with it for as long as I needed to. When I emerged from the room some time later she was handing out tea and coffee to all those (patients and carers / family members) who were also unfortunate enough to be in A and E at 1am on a Sunday morning, taking the time to talk to all of them and make sure they were doing OK.

When I was finally discharged at 5.30am I had a long wait until someone could pick me up. I was sat on a bench at the bus stop outside the hospital waiting for my lift and she came out to head home at the end of her shift. She spotted me sat there and went in and got me another cup of tea, then wrapped her fleece around me and sat and waited with me for nearly an hour until my lift arrived despite the fact that she must have been exhausted and desperate to go home. I have never forgotten Davina's kindness that night.

Also the team at the fracture clinic. The first lady I saw realised I was upset and asked me what was wrong. My whole previous experience came tumbling out in a mess of tears and snot and she asked for my permission to disclose to her colleagues why I was so wary of the hospital. I was then treated very kindly and gently by all those I saw, including those in the x-ray department and the physio I saw several weeks later. Upon meeting me they all started our interaction with "I know you have had a bad experience here before and I promise this is going to be different." And it truly was. I don't know how she had got the message round to all the people I saw but clearly she had and their patience with me was so appreciated.

I wrote letters of thanks, a letter of commendation to the trust and sent chocolates to both Davina and the fracture clinic once I was on the mend.

Yes, the midwife who visited me post-natally at home with DD1 and told me I didn’t have to breast-feed through mastitis, bleeding nipples and a baby that just wouldn’t latch on despite help from all manner of people, and that giving DD1 a bottle wouldn’t kill her. I think she saved DH and I from tipping over the edge in those early days.

@111OrangeApple Yes Mr Fish was from RSCH Brighton. Such a kind man, I will never forget the compassion he showed me.

I wish I had thanked him more at the time but I was not in a good place.

I accompany a disabled relative to hospital appointments as advocate and have seen all of these situations first-hand. Each of these three ladies went way over and above their remit to put my relative at ease, took the time to make sure their stresses were diminished and explained the processes in ways that are easily understood.
They all deserve a higher salary and recognition of how good they are because they are highly knowledgeable in their respective fields and they treat patients like human beings.

The ultrasound tech who was looking for a possible enlarged liver did the scan then explained they could say there and then there was no problem then asked the patient if they'd like to see the scan and gave a commentary on everything it showed and what each organ does.

The MRI scan tech who was so kind to a terrified patient and took the time to make them feel as comfortable as possible during a 30 minute head scan with the top half of the body totally inside the machine and the head immobilised.

The physio who discovered a significant misalignment, then referred on for help with that, then explained there were also other issues that a different physio team would be able to treat but their workload would mean it was highly unlikely they'd be able to accept the patient, but she'd try her best. A couple of weeks later, she phoned, and had successfully referred the patient to the specialist team with an appointment only a few weeks away.

A heartfelt thank-you to all of you lovely ladies, you have made a huge difference

For the first year of DD2's life, we were worried that she had a rare medical condition. Our local hospital couldn't really tell us very much about the condition or whether DD had it, so I didn't feel very confident relying on their opinion; by the time I got to the appointment with the specialist, I had spent weeks reading every scientific paper I could find on the issue and it seemed that we knew more about recent publications than she did, which was quite awkward.

In desperation, I went home and emailed the authors of the various research papers, in their own hospitals across the world. They didn't know me from Adam - I was just a name arriving in their already overcrowded email inboxes. They would have had a hundred other important things to do that day, and there was no particular reason for them to help me. They wouldn't receive any payment or any professional recognition. Helping me would have done nothing but create more work for them.

Every single one of them replied. Every one. They all spoke to me on the telephone or let me bring DD to see them. Thank God, they think that she's probably ok, but this year has changed the way I see the world. People are unbelievably kind. Lots of them, as it turns out.

Wow @HaveIturnedintoThatParent - that brought tears to my eyes. How wonderful. Hope your DD is doing ok.

The paramedics who came when ds2 had croup and the out of hours doctor, having heard his stridor over the phone, told me to put the phone down and call 999 now. They not only did the initial things needed to save him, they were so incredibly calm and caring and made us feel safe. The nurses and doctors who looked after us at the hospital after the paramedics had gone- so calm, so kind, so fucking wonderful at their job. The nurse on the ward after all the drama was over and I believed at last that ds2 would live and it was OK and I could stop trying to be strong, who put her arms round me and let me cry and made me a cup of tea and didn't remind me that she had a ward full of patients and parents to look after and a shitload of paperwork to complete and probably hadn't had a break.

In fact, every time one of my dc has needed medical care, every practitioner involved has been brilliant.

The nurses who did my dad’s end of life care were utterly Amazing, this was on an oncology ward (although he didn’t die of cancer). I still take them biscuits in now when I’m working at that hospital, I’ll never forget their kindness

I've been a nurse for 16 years & I'm crying reading these.

My previous GP. She was a similar age to me with children the same age as mine. At DD six week check up she could see I wasn't quite right, and managed to coax what was wrong out of me. I simply hated breastfeeding and wanted to stop but felt guilty. I even felt guilty speaking those words. She pulled her chair closer to me and said she wasn't going to speak to me as a GP but as another woman. She told me about her two children and how I could have been her talking as she had gone through the exact same thing. We talked it through and she made me realise that I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do. I left the surgery feeling like this massive weight and guilt had been lifted from my shoulders. I weaned DD onto formula within the week and my mental health improved vastly. DH always referred to her as my guardian angel because she was there for me with the exact right words and a sympathetic ear when I needed it most, saving me from sinking deeper than I already was.

My GP is lovely too. I have made a point of telling her how much our family appreciate her and how well run their practice is, as they seem to have sorted the emergency/short term/longer term appointment bookings and we never have to wait too long.