This story was submitted by Cheryl Scott, D.P.T.’07
Being the Director of Rehab at an inpatient rehab facility during this time definitely has its opportunities and challenges. We are deemed to be an overflow hospital to our acute care hospitals in the area, so while we have the opportunity to remain busy, we also have the daily challenges of patient and staff protection and hospital morale. No visitors, PPE decisions, treatment limitations, PRN staff needing work and overall team morale are all areas needing to be addressed. I’m thankful for all the ideas that my 100+ team of therapists (and a fellow DMU DPT alum) have done in the name of patient care. We were able to create job opportunities for those PRN staff that lost full-time work including; assist in the kitchen, temperature checks, environmental services assist, and a patient visitor team. The amazing thing about those in healthcare is that they see that even the little things, like cleaning a toilet if necessary, are still patient care. I have never been so proud of our hospital, our therapists and the culture that we have created. Together, we will overcome these obstacles and when we reflect back we will all see how this situation allowed us to grow as clinicians, as well as, people. We will be more creative, more empathetic, more business sensed, more flexible, more thankful and collectively we will be a stronger team.
