The "My Story Program" Can Transform Your Organization Into a More Healing Place
-Erie Chapman
A nurse calls out to one of her partners, "How’s the gall bladder in 6038?" An admitting clerk sees a familiar face cross the threshold of the ER holding a bleeding arm, "Here comes our frequent flier again," she laughs to a co-worker. An ICU nurse greets a hospital executive performing his morning rounds. In the background, a patient cries out continuously from her room, "Sorry sir, we’ve got a screamer today."
I’ve heard each of these sentences and many more like them during a quarter century as a hospital CEO. The language is understandable considering the stresses of caregiving, but it needs to be changed. Patients are not gall bladders, frequent fliers or screamers. To describe them as such 
demeans not only the humanity of the person but also the humanity of the caregiver.
How are we going to change this? At St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, California (part of the St. Joseph Health System,) Chief Operating Officer Doreen Dann, R.N., along with her boss and her staff have transformed caregiving with a powerful and beautifully simple program. It all arose from a terrible personal tragedy…
October 23, 2003. Michael G. Dann drives slowly down the road toward the running
track where he works out. He wants to stay lean and healthy, to live a long life with his
wife, Doreen, and their three children. In his early fifties, Michael is in
the peak of health.
He never makes it to the track. A car traveling in excess of seventy
miles an hour stikes Michael’s car causing deeply traumatic injuries. His life hangs by a slender thread.
This story has just begun.
Transported to a nearby trauma center, Mike’s identity is as unknown to the staff as are his chances for survival. With no identification, he is placed with more than twenty other anonymous people in the ICU at the trauma center. He is one of the John Does of medicine.
When Doreen, Mike’s wife, arrives at the hospital, she is horrified to see her husband’s condition and heartbroken to see that staff caring for Mike at such a crucial time don’t even know who he is.
"I wanted them to know MY Mike," Doreen told a hushed audience at a summit meeting of leaders in the St. Joseph Health System where she serves as a hospital leader.
And that’s exactly how each of us would feel if our loved one suddenly landed in the hands of caregivers – not only in a hospital, but in a hospice, a nursing home, or in the embrace of any other orga
nization that cares for us in our most vulnerable moments. We want ourselves and our loved ones to be thought of as complete human beings, not as body parts or anonymous semi-humans.
As if inspired by St. Jude himself (the patron saint of lost causes) Doreen sprang into action. She wrote down facts about her husband on notes she posted around the room. She put up pictures and she asked each caregiver to read about Mike before they looked after her husband. This effort helped to humanize, for the caregiving staff, the unconscious person before them.
The hard part of the story is that Michael passed away eight days after the accident. The inspiring part of this story is that Doreen Dann wouldn’t let this story die. Working together, the St. Jude Healthcare Team created a dynamic program that EVERY caregiving organization should use. Starting ASAP!
The program is called My Story. It includes a basic four page brochure and a stirring video describing the genesis of the program. What else is in the brochure? Basically, it’s the format of a 
little scrapbook. Every patient or family member is asked to fill out information about the patient’s life – not the blood pressure and heart rate information – but some of the patient’s life story. Was he a football player in high school? Does she have children? Pets? What are their names? What are the patient’s hobbies? Most important: What would the family like the caregiving team to know about this patient? (see image of Mike and Doreen from the My Story video, left)
Sound small? Turns out, this program is huge. Implemented at St. Jude Medical Center, this effort has had a remarkable impact on further enhancing caregiving in this healing organization and it can do the same thing in your organization. Part of the surprise is not only the humanizing impact on the patient’s care, but the influence it has on the caregivers and on the families and friends that surround the patient.
We all react to what’s right in front of us. It can be difficult to recall that the injured person, the elderly patient, the leukemia victim is more than what we see.
If, subconciosuly, you think of yourself as a nurse caring for "gall bladders," you’re sort of a body mechanic. But if you’re a nurse caring for human beings whose health is threatened by gall bladder disease, your work becomes sacred and your daily/nightly calling is enriched with meaning.
This is the beauty of the My Story program. And its the beauty of Doreen’s gift to everyone wise enough to implement her wonderful idea.
Doreen asks only one thing in return: that you honor her husband by referencing his name, Michael G. Dann, as the inspiration for this program. It is one way his legacy will live in the hearts of those who never met this person and yet will be affected by his life and the example his wife and others set to offer this story as an example that can help thousands of others.
For more information, go to www.stjudemedicalcenter.org
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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