Life Changing Moments

Laura Mahood, a manager of patient safety at UPMC Mercy, shares the details of her breast cancer diagnosis, and the little things that made the experience even more difficult.

We don't often think about what we do in terms of how we impact each other's stories. But the fact is, in health care, when patients leave, they tell their stories. And any of us can find ourselves a footnote in a patient's story for years and years. In a cancer diagnosis like the one UPMC Altoona and UPMC Bedford’s Georganna Horell’s dad faced, there are a lot of little moments from a lot of different people that truly shape how someone perceives their care.

Making your coworkers feel cared for and valued is every bit as important as making your patients feel cared for and valued. When Mary Barkhymer, vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer, St. Margaret received a breast cancer diagnosis, her peers came to her side.

How does your job effect patient care? For some, that answer is very easy. For others, it can be a struggle to see the impact. Kristin Forsberg, lab manager, UPMC Horizon, used to struggle with that as well. But after becoming a patient herself, her impact in the lab became very clear to her.

Equally important to patient care is caring for our coworkers.  Everybody needs to feel supported and valued if they want to feel fulfilled in their job. Tracy Benny, director, Medical Staff Services, UPMC Mercy, shares how her life changing moment came from her coworkers helping her when she was down.

Dawndra Jones, vice president, patient care services, chief nursing officer, UPMC East and UPMC McKeesport, shares a story that shows sometimes, we need to be more than just caretakers. 

When Joy Gero, manager of Patient Representative Services at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, was 22, a normal day with her family turned tragic. In this episode, Joy shares how negative interactions made a difficult day even worse.

In this episode, we’ll hear from Mark Sevco who is currently the interim president of UPMC Children’s Hospital, but he has been all over UPMC for the past 26 years of his career. Mark tells his story as a parent who had to watch his daughter go through health challenges.