KATIE: John? JOHN: Yes.
KATIE: Hi, I'm Katie, one of the peer supporters here. Do you mind if I sit down?
JOHN: Help yourself. KATIE: Thanks, so I wanted to introduce
myself and come say hi, I know that
there was a pretty complicated case recently that you were part of the response team on.
JOHN: So does someone have a problem with the care I provided or - KATIE: Oh, no -
JOHN: Does someone think that I'm not able to do my job or something like that?
KATIE: Honestly, not at all. It's the exact opposite, it's that they
have such respect for you and complete faith in the care that you provide that they want to make
sure that you also are feeling great and are at your, you know, the top of your game so that you
can continue to give that amazing care but also feel okay at the same time.
JOHN: So you said you're a peer supporter, does that mean you work for the legal department?
Or are you in some kind of peer review type of capacity?
Or why, what is a peer supporter and who do you work for?
KATIE: I probably should have led with that, I'm sorry. Peer support is just that,
think of us as like, you and I are peers. We're colleagues. This is an absolutely confidential conversation
there's nothing retaliatory about it whatsoever. It's really here as a resource people use
it all the time when, you know, something goes a little differently than expected,
when there's added stressors throughout your work day, as everyone is experiencing right now.
We're really truly here to listen, to be a resource, to refer you to other resources if need be, but
there's nothing retaliatory. There's nothing with compliance, there's nothing with legal. As you know,
as a care provider, the only thing we have to do is if there is something that we're curious about
with either your safety or the safety of somebody else we would want to make sure we elevated that.
That is really the only reason that something would go beyond the two of us.
JOHN: So who's your boss and would you be reporting something to my manager or my supervisor?
Or if I talk to you, what would come of that?
KATIE: Yeah. Well I don't have a boss in this role, in the peer support role.
It's an all-volunteer committee. It's actually, we have a section on the well-being task force area
of our hospital website. It might be helpful, I can send that to you if you want to maybe
take a peek at that and get comfortable with what my role is and what we do before we
have a conversation because I understand that I'm coming to you and you're not expecting it so -
JOHN: Yeah, this is kind of out of left field for me and I - you're kind of taking
me by surprise, so I'd really like to get a little bit more comfortable with what peer support is and
what it means because I've not really heard about this up until you sat down with me so that would
be great. So I could read about this somewhere? KATIE: Absolutely.
JOHN: On our portal here, at our facility? KATIE: Mhm, if it sounds okay with you,
I'll send you a note, I'll put in where you can find this information
and it actually goes through everything about peer support. It actually has the people
who are peer supporters, you know, peer support trained, with whom you can
have conversations if I'm not the right person maybe you'll see someone else's name on there
with whom you'd like to talk. And it also shows a few other resources that we have available, both
internally, externally - it's a good jumping off point that I'll send over to you and
I can tell this is not the right time to have this conversation and I completely respect you
wanting to get a little bit more information so if it sounds okay I can send that over to you to take a peek?
JOHN: Yeah, definitely, I'd definitely like to look at that and I do have to get back to my patients.
KATIE: Sure, sure. JOHN: So that makes sense and I do
appreciate you sitting down and, you know, I don't want to push back
on you but I just am not comfortable until I learn a lot more about this because I just,
the first time anything like this has ever been brought to my attention.
KATIE: Again, I completely respect that and I will send you that information
if that's okay, and I'll loop back out. And I just want to leave you with, again,
that was a lot what you went through and we're here to help. We're really here to help.
JOHN: Well I do appreciate that you did reach out and sit down with me, thank you.