Dedicated leader puts patients first
Karen Smith ably steers her team at Sunnybrook’s burn treatment centre
Some people might regard working at a burn treatment centre as a depressing job — after all, patient injuries can be severe, disfiguring and painful. But for Toronto Star Nightingale Award honourable mention recipient Karen Smith, there’s a tremendous reward in watching patients emerge from a cocoon of pain and shock and progress toward rehab.
“They don’t go out to another unit,” says the patient care manager at the Ross Tilley Burn Centre (RTBC) — Sunnybrook Hospital. “They stay with you. And that makes a huge difference. It’s a circle of care we are privileged to see. It’s very fulfilling.”
Smith points out the nature of work in a burn centre is necessarily co-operative mainly because “you can hardly do anything by yourself.” She takes joy in working with the dedicated, self-motivated care team who “don’t need to be micromanaged or told when to take lunch.”
Although she no longer works directly with patients, she now sees her job as serving the dedicated burn centre team; ensuring their needs are met, whether for adequate equipment and supplies, time off or a listening ear. “I’m there to serve them and they’re there to serve the patients,” she says.
They in turn regard her as “the greatest patient care manager on the planet,” says Dr. Marc Jeschke, director of the RTBC who nominated Smith for the Nightingale Award. And yet, he says, Smith has never lost her patient-first orientation. “She is goal-oriented and completely committed to patient care,” Jeschke says.
Smith has always had a pull to nursing. “Even as a child, I used to give medicine to my dolls,” she admits. She graduated with a BScN from McMaster University in 1984 and got her master’s degree in 2008.
She has now spent 34 years in the field — 28 of them exclusively with RTBC — and she manages responsibility for 100 reports annually at Sunnybrook, as well as sitting on numerous committees, and juggling the additional tasks of colead of Sunnybrook Hospital’s rapid response team and patient care manager for respiratory therapy (adult).
Jeschke credits Smith with never shying away from tough questions, such as, “Why did this complication or infection occur and is it possible we can do something to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future?”
At least partially as a result, RTBC has one of the highest hand-washing markers in the hospital — a critical factor in infection control. And in 2012, it achieved the coveted American Burn Association (ABA) verification, putting it in the top echelons of burn centres around the world. “We’re constantly striving to improve,” Smith says.
In that, Smith’s contribution can’t be over-valued, says Jeschke. “Burns is a true team sport,” he says, “but it takes a leader to steer and guide the team. Karen does this on a daily basis without taking credit for it. In fact, she has never taken credit for anything.”
Smith’s take is characteristically modest: “I stay real busy,” she says.