Once Again, Our Staff Shows Their Commitment to Our Patients and Their Resiliency

Baltimore is now digging out from the largest recorded snowfall in its history. This past weekend, Team GBMC again demonstrated its commitment to its mission of health, healing and hope for the community. I witnessed the teamwork, camaraderie and “can do” attitude of our people first hand.

I am writing this late Monday morning. I have been on campus, along with many, many others since Friday night.

Stacey McGreevy, our incident commander, did a remarkable job coordinating everyone’s actions. Cate O’Connor-Devlin oversaw the complexity of 24-hour nurse staffing for over 200 patients. Michelle Tauson and Dan Tesch tirelessly exhibited their expertise in disaster management for the duration of our “code yellow” event. Dr. John Saunders, our Chief Medical Officer, was the administrator on-call and has also been on campus since Friday morning. This leadership team did a fantastic job to the point that a nurse told me that she had been with us for over 30 years but this was the best handled weather event in her tenure.

For sure, there are things that we have learned from this event…. our supply of cots, once numbering 500 is now too few for our needs – we will order more. We did a good job of telling people where to sleep, but, we need to generate a map of who will be where. But for the most part, things went smoothly and every patient got the care they needed.

Our environmental service and food service workers were extraordinary in their ability to keep GBMC clean and all of us fed (Dr. Saunders and I each gained a few pounds because we did not miss a meal.) Our grounds crew did their usual phenomenal job of clearing snow and our facilities team made sure that everything remained in working order.

Most of the nurses and nursing techs worked 36 hours in three days. Many physicians trudged on foot through snow to get here. After going to pick-up one of our essential physicians, who had walked a couple of miles to the interstate and dropping him off at the ED door, a patient asked me if I could give him a lift to the center of Towson. When I accommodated him, he was very grateful to not be among the stranded at our hospital. Our communications team, staff at Gilchrist Hospice Care and the pharmacy were exemplary.

All of our other clinicians, patient access reps, secretaries and other support staff did their jobs well and remained focused on our patients under trying circumstances.

Late Sunday night, we got a special treat when members (pic left) from the Chesed Fund/Project Ezra, Hatzalah, Shomrim and Chaveirim all brought us fresh bagels!

So, I am in awe of all of my GBMC colleagues. Thanks again for all you did for our patients! Is summer almost here?