- Community, Heart Care, Patient StoriesGeneral Page Tier 3BlogNine years after a stroke left Judy Crane with such severe speech deficits that she had difficulty being understood, the 56-year-old Millersville resident has become an articulate and outspoken advocate for stroke patients. One of 90 patient advisors at AAMC, Judy sits on the stroke advisory committee and the patient advisory council. In both roles, she provides hospital staff with the patient perspective that helps them provide patient-centered care, reaching beyond a patient’s medical needs. When I was invited to be a patient advisor on the stroke committee, I thought it was kind of intriguing that they even want a patient to be on their committee. The committee gets together once a month to review the stroke cases, looking for how they can make things better. Anybody that has anything to do with a patient is there. The doctors and nurses, the pharmacy and lab, radiology, they look at the whole gamut. When topics come up, I look at them from my experience and also other people’s experiences and I provide the “bedside” view. If I can add something about how a patient would feel about it, I give my input. One of the things I asked at the stroke committee was if anybody was willing to volunteer to start a stroke support group. Right there, three people volunteered. One is a speech therapist; one’s a physical therapist and one an occupational therapist. When I had my stroke, I really needed to be able to talk to somebody who had experienced this. There are so many questions. Will I be able to work? What about disability? What are some tips that can help me in relating to my kids, my spouse, my friends. I mean it goes on and on. The group is a great sounding board and it’s wonderful for the staff too because they can see how patients manage afterward, and we can give feedback to the hospital about how things went. Now, I’m also on the patient-family advisor council. That’s a bigger group that helps some of the staff come up with patient-centered care goals and initiatives. One goal is educating staff so everyone understands what patient-centered care really is. Sometimes it’s as simple as giving a patient hope, or encouraging them to be a part of their recovery process. It’s all about really looking at each patient individually, and empowering both the patient and their families to be engaged in their treatment and recovery. To learn more about the Stroke Support Group contact Laurie Neely, physical therapist, or Jennifer Irving, speech-language pathologist or by phone: 443-481-6872. To find out how to become a patient advisor contact Jeanne Morris, advisor coordinator, at 443-481-6054.
- Men's Health, Uncategorized, Patient StoriesGeneral Page Tier 3BlogIt was a sunny evening in May when Roger and Mary LeBlanc got a call telling them that their son had been in a serious car accident. Their daughter-in-law did not survive and their son, Matthew, sustained a severe head injury. Roger and Mary stayed with Matthew for two months at a hospital in Wisconsin where the accident occurred. They had planned to continue caring for him at their home in Boston, but Matthew wanted to return to his life in Maryland. Although he was recovering, he wasn’t ready to be on his own. The Hackerman-Patz House gave Dad and Matthew a supportive home away-from-home near the hospital while they transitioned through a difficult time. Being at the Hackerman-Patz house allowed me to take care of Matt 100 percent of the time and it increased the pace of his recovery. When we got here, Matt had two to three medical appointments a day. At that point he couldn’t walk across the street by himself. He had about 30 minutes of energy and he needed about six hours of rest to get to the next appointment. He would wake up, walk to an appointment with me, come back and go to bed. Then he’d get up, eat a meal and go to another appointment. There’s no way we could have made it through the day without the Hackerman-Patz house—without that ability to literally walk across the street to make that happen. We would have had to stretch out the appointments, because he couldn’t physically do it. It’s an incredibly reasonable price, too. Being at the Hackerman-Patz house was unbelievable and the volunteer staff treated us like gold. It was like being in a second home. From a family standpoint, to be able to step out of the room and sit and watch TV and write a letter, to do laundry, these are the things you take for granted. After two weeks of staying in the House, we moved into Matt’s apartment and started going to appointments from there. It’s been about nine months now, and his mental capacity and his cognitive skills are 100 percent now. You’d never know he has a big piece of plastic in his head holding his skull together. It’s probably going to take him another year before he builds up his stamina, but he’s back to work about six hours a day. I can’t say enough good things about the Hackerman-Patz house, but even more so, it’s indicative of what the hospital thinks is important. That they allow and support a Hackerman-Patz to be built is one of the best reasons why Matt’s going to recover.
- Men's Health, Women's Health, Uncategorized, Patient StoriesGeneral Page Tier 3BlogWhen gastroenterologist Melanie Lynn Jackson needed someone she could trust to perform acid reflux surgery on her own chronic illness, she turned to Adrian Park, MD, at AAMC. I’m a gastroenterologist, and I come from a family of medical professionals. My grandmother was a nurse, my father was an internal medicine physician in Philadelphia. I found a good opportunity here in Annapolis, and I joined a group practice. The problem I have is that my esophagus, my food pipe, does not contract properly. Normally your food pipe has contractions to get the food down, but mine doesn’t contract well at all. Additionally, where it meets the stomach it was very tight. So, the food pipe was starting to get big, stretching where food was trying to go through something very tight. I was diagnosed with the condition back in 1999 when I was in medical school, and I did some non-surgical methods to treat the problem. That worked well for many years, but then when I became pregnant, my symptoms got worse. That’s when I decided to have surgery. Once I heard that Dr. Park was coming to town, and I read his bio, there was really no excuse to not do the surgery now. He was an expert in this type of procedure. The surgical recovery was probably just about a week or so. Because it was laparoscopic, so you have just the small incisions. The biggest thing was not being able to lift. Of course having a two year old, it was very difficult to lift my daughter who is about 20-25 pounds. I couldn’t do that for about a month. I still have to take my time, swallow my food. I do have to make lifestyle changes, such as small, frequent meals. That’s going to be permanent.
- Senior Care, Uncategorized, Heart Care, Patient StoriesGeneral Page Tier 3BlogAfter surviving two heart attacks that happened within months of each other, 82-year-old Bernard Devaney says the cardiac rehab program is bringing him back to his old self one day at a time. I had the first heart attack at the doctor’s office. I couldn’t have been luckier in that sense because, of course, I was right at the AAMC campus and they rushed me to the hospital. I had a valve replaced and two more surgeries for a blockage in the main artery. After a couple of weeks healing, I went into rehab and, on my third visit, the heart stopped again. That had never happened before but the medical staff knew exactly what they were doing and they were outstanding. Of course, I was transferred to the hospital and the ambulance EMT watched the whole thing and said it was a miracle how well and how efficient the hospital staff were. They saved my life. After several weeks of healing and a couple more surgeries, I’m back in rehab and it’s a great program. When I go in, the nurses put a couple of wires on me to monitor me on a screen and take my blood pressure at least four times. I have a defibrillator and a pacemaker that keeps my heartbeat at 60. So if it drops below that, the defibrillator kicks it back up. The nurses at the cardiac rehab center watch me the whole time and tell me what to do. I do 30 minutes on the bike and lift some weights and they are gradually working me up. The difference in just a month is almost a miracle. At first I was walking with a walker. Now I don’t need the walker. It is amazing how the energy and strength at first were gone, but they are both coming back. I’m not back 100 percent but I’m almost there. This past weekend we drove to Ocean City and spent a few days up there. I’ve already signed up for a golf tournament there in a couple of months. But you know, it’s not only that it’s a great place and they know what they’re doing, they are basically the nicest people and they are so good to me.
- Cancer Care, Community, Women's Health, Patient StoriesGeneral Page Tier 3BlogAs a breast cancer survivor, Lucretia Jackson knows what it’s like to be a patient. As an elementary school principal, she understands the importance of listening. Lucretia brings both of those skill sets and a seemingly endless supply of energy and dedication to her role as a patient advisor to the hospital safety committee. On the hospital safety committee, we discuss various topics dealing with quality and patient safety. We also talk about what patient advisors can do to advocate for whatever we see that can be improved within the hospital from a patient’s perspective. One of the things we emphasize with regard to patient care is nothing about me without me. As a patient, nothing should ever happen to you without you being part of it. I think it’s crucial to build a culture of patient and family centered safety. We did a lot of brainstorming about different things we could use to improve the handbook that we give to the patients. We thought about videos that we can show to patients as they enter the hospital. I worked very closely with the company that created the hospital whiteboards—a communication tool. The hospital whiteboard is posted inside the rooms and has all the important information pertaining to that patient. It has contact information for the physician or nurse on-call, and uses the SMART acronym: Symptoms, Medications, Appointments, Results and Talking points. It can also include the potential discharge date and the family spokesperson. It even has a spot where a family member can say “contact me” or if they have a question they can pose a question on it and ask for an answer to that question. Patient input on this type of thing is very beneficial. It’s more beneficial than anything for me to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of the patient/family perspective at every point along the continuum of healthcare and decision making and delivery. In my heart, I feel it is an invaluable experience for anyone to serve as a patient advocate–I’m getting to know the “ins and outs” of the hospital and I have an opportunity to see how extremely hard the staff work to make sure everything is done efficiently and effectively when it pertains to patients. They’re with us 100 percent.
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