171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
800-424-MUSC
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March 2006
Letter From Our Chair
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L. Lyndon Key, MD
Professor and Chairman
Department of Pediatrics |
Dear Faculty, Staff, and Friends:
Anyone who has ever been sick knows the importance of nursing care. The touch, the kindness, the thoughtful contemplation of how
to actuate therapy, and initiate and improve therapeutics - all are parts of everyday nursing. In today's children's hospital, the
nurse works closely with patients, families, therapists, and doctors. They are administrators within their unit, bedside pharmacists,
and the first line of care. And they are still there when the patient is ready to be discharged.
At the MUSC Children's Hospital, the nursing staff is a family advocate. When tears are shed, when pain is being assessed and treated,
when there is a need to talk to someone -- nurses are there. They explain treatments, bind wounds, comfort and counsel family and patient.
The mechanism of the modern hospital requires that the nurse also understand the operation of an array of mechanical instrumentation
and multiple pieces of software, plus the complexity of an ever-growing armamentarium of pharmaceuticals.
In addition, nurses answer nutritional questions, train patients and families to provide shots, clear lines, and assess gastric tubes.
Our nurses are knowledgeable about the patient conditions, and use their assessment skills, knowledge base, and judgment skills to
summon the physician when needed on behalf of the patient. Nurses are ethically and professionally obligated to go up the chain of
command in a rapid fashion as needed to ensure patient needs are addressed. The lives of our patients are truly in their hands.
Nurses do what needs to be done. I would like to thank our staff for taking the initiative to design and carry out new studies to improve
pain control, infection control, and monitoring orders. As a physician whose career began with seven years as a nursing assistant, I realize
the hard work, caring hands, and thoughtful minds are the engines that change therapies into cures and frowns into smiles.
Medicine is a team sport. The many people who work in our children's hospital, from housekeeping to the directors of medicine and surgery,
are part of this team that makes the magic happen every day. Thanks to all, especially the nursing staff, for your part in creating an
atmosphere that creates a better world for the children in our hospital.
Sincerely,
L. Lyndon Key, MD
Chair, Department of Pediatrics
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