The Nurses: Anticipating the Need

The patient, a hard looking man with arms covered in tattoos who arrived in the operating room a couple of hours earlier accompanied by two well-armed guards, moans and rolls slowly toward the edge of the gurney. "Careful. We don't want you on the floor. You're too big to pick up." says Helen, a WSF recovery nurse. She attaches the pulse oximeter to her patient's left arm (it's a small but indispensable piece of equipment which reads the patient's oxygen saturation and pulse). Languid and weak from the anesthetic, he looks up at her and asks for something. It's difficult to hear what he is saying. "Kleenex? Do you need a Kleenex? A hanky?" asks Helen. "Paper," he says. She turns abruptly around and darts over to the supply basket. In no time she is back by his side gently placing the tissue in her patient's hand. Anticipating her patient's every need, calm and always prepared with a joke or a soothing word, Helen defines
"bedside manner."

A veteran of nine WSF missions Helen knows the drill. "I was only going to go on one mission. I love 'em! I love 'em! I'm hooked." It's a good thing too. On one of the India missions, Helen worked six recovery rooms by herself armed with nothing but a pulse oximeter and her charming wit. There is no doubt that she is in her element. It's as if she was plugged into some limitless energy source. And yet, regardless of the level of stress in the room she remains calm, sociable and jovial.

The WSF nurses are more than just the glue that holds everything together. They bear the mantle of responsibility for so many of the needed services on this mission. Whether in tending to the patients in PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) or making sure everything is in place and running smoothly in the operating room they are dedicated and unflagging in their efforts to, as one nurse put it, "do some good and help these people!"

Helen puts an arm around her patient and props him up. Still too weak to crack a smile he gazes into her eyes with tacit trust. This image would be incongruous with any other setting, but Helen, with her sincere smile and easy manner, makes it look like business as usual.