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When a Nurse Becomes a Patient

Maggie Fermental, RN, BSN, never imagined when she joined BIDMC as an OR nurse that the medical center would save her life 10 months later.

In January 2004, while ice skating with her nephews, Fermental fell and hit her head. Released from a local hospital, Fermental had headaches and dizziness from what she and local doctors believed was a concussion. The following weekend, she awoke to find the room spinning and called 911. “By the time help arrived, I had lost feeling in my arms and legs,” she recalls.

Fermental was transferred to BIDMC. The diagnosis: Her fall a week earlier had torn an artery in her neck, leading to a stroke. BIDMC staff neurologist Gottfried Schlaug, MD, ordered heparin to prevent further spread of her blood clot, but her brain stem had already been severely damaged.“I couldn’t move my right side,” she says.

BIDMC’s stroke team — including Schlaug, Magdy Selim, MD and Megan Leary, MD — stabilized Fermental during her month in intensive care. Equally important were visits from family, friends, coworkers and others, including BIDMC President and CEO Paul Levy and his wife, Barbara, who is a stroke survivor.

Fermental recalls feeling like “a blob in a chair” when she left BIDMC for months of rehabilitation. “I couldn’t even hold my head up,” she says.
When Fermental finally returned home in June, she “just slept” until the following January. One year after her stroke, she returned to work as a part time nurse caring for stroke patients on BIDMC’s Farr 5 unit.

“I figured if I didn’t come back now, I will never come back,” she says. Working with stroke patients proved to be inspirational. “I have a totally different perspective on nursing after having been a patient. I can say, ‘this is what you can expect.’”

Now Fermental is helping BIDMC’s cerebrovascular/stroke Division Chief Louis Caplan, MD, form a monthly Stroke Club at BIDMC, where stroke survivors can discuss common issues and enjoy excursions.

Fermental’s story also inspired donors Alexander and Brenda Tanger to create a scholarship in her honor. The first Alexander and Brenda Tanger Nursing Scholarship was presented this month to BIDMC fiscal coordinator Crystal Gavin, who is earning a nursing degree.

Information on BIDMC’s Stroke Club: Fermental at 781-572-0126 or
mferment@bidmc.harvard.edu

May is National Stroke Awareness month. The American Stroke Association advises you to call 911 immediately if you experience:

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
  
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
  
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
  
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
  
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause

For more information on stroke, visit the American Stroke Association Web site at http://www.strokeassociation.org

Above: Caplan and Fermental

 

Academic Initiatives at BIDMC...

Residents are part of the everyday culture at BIDMC.

Long known as a premiere venue for medical education, BIDMC has taken steps to bring even greater innovation to its prestigious Harvard-affiliated teaching program. Several initiatives have grown out of the Strategic Plan for Education, which was adopted last July:

National Accreditation
In April, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) informed Richard Schwartzstein, MD, vice president for education, that BIDMC’s graduate medical education program would receive a four-year accreditation. In granting the renewal, reviewers for the national organization praised the depth of resources for trainees and physician faculty members and expressed interest in sharing BIDMC’s “Principles Guiding Medical Education at BIDMC” with ACGME leaders and other institutions. This new document lays out expectations and responsibilities for medical educators and trainees.

Sheila Barnett, MD, incoming GME director, says “The residency and fellowship programs at BIDMC are full of talented and dedicated physicians. The accreditation was a validation of all the hard work by both the individual programs and the committed staff in the GME office.”

Resource for Faculty
A new resource faculty system for education makes us “unique in Boston,” says Schwartzstein. “Our goal is to be the best interdisciplinary teaching facility in the Harvard system.” Schwartzstein describes the 13-member resource faculty as “already gifted teachers” who work with department chairs to provide professional development for faculty in their departments and act as go-to individuals for advice about educational challenges. They are resources on how to teach and adapt to trainee and fellow faculty learning styles. Resource faculty assist in developing evaluation tools, and are available to provide feedback on teaching, fostering the ability of their peers to succeed within the Harvard system.

As a group, the faculty is studying advanced teaching and evaluation techniques and helping to develop a pilot “longitudinal” curriculum for Harvard students entering their clinical training.

David Miller, MD, one of five chief residents in medicine and a future Harvard pulmonary fellow, observes that the strength of BIDMC’s teaching program is that students and residents have access to the depth of Harvard Medical School (HMS) faculty who are approachable and accessible. “They are truly interested in developing the house staff into better doctors.” He notes the number of physicians who have taken the time – a precious resource in health care – to become better teachers through the Shapiro Institute’s Rabkin fellowships and other programs. “It is obvious they have made teaching a priority,” he says.

A New Center for Education
The resource faculty program was just one outgrowth of BIDMC’s Strategic Plan for Education, which redefined the vision and structure of one of the medical center’s key missions. The plan also established a BIDMC Center for Education under Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey Flier, MD, led by Schwartzstein and composed of an Office of Graduate Medical Education, an Office of Undergraduate Medical Education and the Carl J. Shapiro Institute for Education and Research. The Institute, a joint HMS and BIDMC program, supports trainee and faculty development while serving as an international leader in medical education.

For a list of resource faculty and more information, visit http://www.bidmc.harvard.edu/education.