To whom it may concern,
On November 24th around 1:30 pm
I encountered the rudest and most unprofessional respiratory therapist Faye. My family and I are sitting with my aunt and this lady walks into the room without knocking and immediately starts working with my aunt without acknowledging who she is or her position. She then leaves out and comes back while the radiology technician is completing my aunts Chest X-ray. At this point we all are waiting outside until the technician finishes up. Let me add that the radiology technician came in and stated her name and the task she was going to perform. Once the technician finished we all went into the room and the respiratory therapist is drawing a blood gas and the reason I know this is because I’m a Registered Nurse. So I ask her her name and at this point I knew she was the therapist. When asked her name, she stated it and decided to spell it as if I was illiterate and with a disrespectful tone. I asked, “Why didn’t you acknowledge yourself when entering the room and she stated, “I’m dealing with her and pointed to my aunt.” As a healthcare professional myself I know the professional thing to do is always introduce yourself when entering a room for the first time and with family at the bedside. If the healthcare professional is unsure of who’s in the room they find out before doing any test or blood work on a patient because maybe those individuals would need to leave until completed. This individual chose to ignore the family members in the room as if we didn’t exist. Professionally that’s the rudest thing you can do to family members even more so when your family member is extremely sick. My other family members didn’t understand why she didn’t even acknowledge them. How can you be a healthcare provider and ignore family members during such a stressful time?? I understand patient care comes first but when entering first things first. I recall in 2014 having a similar experience with another respiratory therapist and couldn’t believe 4yrs later and it’s the same/similar experience. Seeing this happening to my family it’s probably happened to other families in this facility and it’s unacceptable. If a healthcare provider treats family this way, who’s to say the patients are being taken care of properly. That day the nurse Reyna was very personable and involved the family in the patient care. Also, Dr. Sponcellar was wonderful! He introduced himself and involved the patient and family in the plan of care. If the physician takes the time the respiratory therapist should also take the time and be held accountable. As I mentioned, she was very rude and unprofessional and I didn’t want to make my aunt upset because she’s already really sick but if it were me I would never let Faye be a therapist for me or anyone else in my family. The thing that saddens me is I don’t live in the area and not able to oversee everything that’s happening. Our job as healthcare providers are to provide excellent care and service to patients and families. Now maybe Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center has a different mission for providing patient/family care. Mutual respect (doing unto others as you would have them do unto you) is one of the values of the hospital and Faye was not an example of that. I felt this was necessary to bring to someone’s attention. I reported this to the PR department a few months ago and still haven’t heard anything back.
