Patients and families want much more from nurses than competent clinical care.

Patients and families count on nurses to keep them informed, to connect them to their physicians and other
caregivers, to listen to them, to ease their anxiety, and to protect and watch over them during their healthcare
experience. Because of these high expectations of nurses, its no wonder that nursing performance, and more
specifically, the nurse patient relationship, is so central to patient satisfaction and a quality patient exerience

Yet, in strategies to achieve service excellence, while some nurses are enthusiastic, committed and supportive,
many express concerns and resistance.
O $ome nurses feel insulted. They think, "Im a nursing professional! Im with people when theyre sick
and dying, and now Im being told to smile more?!? Or they feel judged, "How dare anyone imply that I
dont care!?!
O $ome nurses feel resentful. They think, "When this organization removes the obstacles that make my
life difficult, Ill smile more!
O nd other nurses feel cynical. They think, "This IS important, but it wont stick. This too shall pass like
other things weve tried to do here.
Theres more than one grain of truth in each of these sentiments.
O Often service improvement strategies in health care have emphasized cosmetic aspects of the service
relationships. Nurses are keenly aware of working with people who are emotionally drained and
emotionally charged, and facing traumatic life circumstances. Making them happy hardly seems like a
relevant goal, and nurses perceive it as superficial and discounting of the important work they do.
O #esistance to raised service standards is also understandable when nurses perceive leaders as doing too
little to remove obstacles to provide excellent care and service. Broken equipment, linen shortages, short
staffing, inadequate support in the face of disrespectful doctors - all of these and more obstacles cause
nurses to say, "Dont pin patient dissatisfaction on us! We dont have the support we need to provide the
care we WANT to provide.
O ynical nurses who are very dedicated to patients and families sound their frustration over past initiatives
that raised their hopes but then fizzled due to lack of follow-through by the organizations leaders.
O ave you ever had a supernatural experience in the hospital while you are on duty?
O Horror stories in the hospitals are not at all uncommon, specially for nurses who work graveyard
shifts. Appearances of ghosts, patients who passed away in the ward, unexplainable shadows and a
lot more are typical for patients and nurses alike.
O They say that the most sensitive to these are those who are in a critical condition. Nurses who are
assigned in intensive care units can recount countless stories about patients who claimed or
complained about seeing and being taken by people in black. There are also others who witnessed
unfamiliar floating objects in the ward.
O et's hear some stories from nurses who had first hand unusual experiences in the hospital.
O hristine Francia, 25, PI& Nurse " I saw the actual soul of my dying 3-year-old-patient
separate from his body while he was on arrest. The child was on comatose for 5 days already. I was
doing my rounds when I notice the child went on bradycardia, I automatically ran to his bedside to
check for his vitals. He seemed to be gasping for breath. Suddenly, I witnessed an unusual
movement came out of his body. It happened so quickly. The next thing I know, he was on arrest.
The whole team was reviving him, but he didn't respond anymore. It was unusual the first time I
experienced it but with all the heppenings in NI&, children who are about to die have this similar
situation. An unusual movement that seemed as if their soul is being taken to heaven
O anie $erra, 24, M$ Ward Nurse " I was on night duty then while I was doing my rounds I heard
a girl crying on one of the vacant rooms. So I went to check, as I came closer the room the cry
went louder. When I got into the room, the crying stopped and didn't see anyone in there.
O #ee o, 24, linic Nurse " My friend who was assigned in the graveyard shift experienced this
unexplainable "ghost story. She was assigned in the pm shift. One night while she was arranging
the files, she saw a tall man passed by the glass door. At first, she just ignored it. Minutes have
passed, she then noticed a young boy staring at her by the door again. This time, she went to see if
there are people outside the door, but she didn't see any and the boy suddenly disappeared. It was
okay the first time she experienced this but it happened on 4 consecutive nights. On the fifth day,
my friend couldn't take it any longer so she resigned. After she resigned, she called me and told me
that she keeps seeing the man and the young boy even in their house.