The Antidote to Suffering: How Compassionate Connected Care Can Improve Safety, Quality, and Experience

CHAPTER1An Epidemic of Suffering

IT WAS JULY 24, 2013, a Wednesday. My husband, Tom, and I were at the hospital, sitting in a small, windowless nurse’s office before a desk laden with folders and papers. For years, I had worked in an office just like this one as a nurse administrator. But sitting here on this day was like no other experience I have ever had. This time, I wasn’t the nurse, conveying the results of a cancer biopsy. I was the patient.

Many nurses see death up close. And thanks to this proximity, some of us come to feel less afraid of it. Not me. Rationally, I knew that I probably didn’t have cancer. My doctor had told me that 80 ...