It started with one frightened patient who was nervous about being sedated for a procedure and it ended with dozens of caregivers singing and dancing in the hallway to the Neil Diamond tune, “Sweet Caroline.”
“We had a patient come for a procedure and she was really nervous; really, really nervous, and our nurses were doing their best to try to help her,” says Tami Montgomery, RN, surgical services nurse manager at American Fork Hospital. “As much as they could, they tried to help her feel comfortable.”
As they were bringing her to the OR, she again told a nurse how nervous she was. The nurse reassured her they would take very good care of her and introduced her to everyone on the team.
“When patients are given the medication that puts them to sleep, the anesthesiologist will say something like, ‘Let’s have you count backwards from 100.’ That’s sort of something that helps people concentrate on something else instead of being very nervous. But this patient said, ‘Oh, I’m just too nervous to do that. I don’t even think I can count backwards from 100.’ And so, the nurse in the room said, ‘Is there something else we could do that might make you feel more comfortable?’ And the patient said, ‘Well, I really like Neil Diamond,’ and I think the patient was really kidding when she asked, ‘Would you just sing Sweet Caroline with me?’”
They quickly found some music to accompany them and the OR performance began.
“They all started singing ‘Sweet Caroline,’” she says. “Every single person in the room, even the surgeon came in, to sing ‘Sweet Caroline’ to her as she was going off to sleep. And as she woke up, that was the first thing she remembered. She was just so grateful we understood that she was nervous and anxious and took the time to recognize that maybe the routine of counting backwards from 100 wasn’t going to help her relax.”
Kim Durrant, OR tech, says it lightened the mood for the patient. She admits the singing probably wasn’t that good even though Tami called Kim a “rock star in our department.”
“It lightened the mood in the room because we were all singing, so it was less scary for her to go to sleep,” Kim says. “Hopefully, she wasn’t as stressed or worried or scared because we’re all singing ‘Sweet Caroline.’”
Tami says she’s proud of her team’s impromptu OR performance.
“It goes to show you we’ll do anything for our patients,” she says. “If it makes the patient feel more comfortable, we’ll make the patient feel more comfortable.”
The OR team was asked to recreate the scene on video but something unusual happened. Dozens of surgical nurses and techs joined in, as if an impromptu musical had suddenly burst forth in the hallway. So far, there’s no word on whether the group will be asked to go on tour.
(See video above.)