Lafayette Regional Campus Works to Build Community
Kristi L. Anderson, PhD, Director, Medical Education Lafayette Campus
I am sure we can all share stories of 2020. A new pandemic, COVID-19, came into the world creating separation, masks, and anxiety. Then came the lockdown that forced us to live in fear, confusion and the unknown. In the months that followed, George Floyd’s death moved the world to tears and asked people to make a choice and take a stand. Before we knew it, the world had created a movement and members of the Lafayette community wanted to be involved.
A few physicians and I decided we could do something on the local level to participate in this movement. What we thought was going to be a small stand-in turned into a group of more than 100 people kneeling for eight minutes and 46 seconds in front of the main thoroughfare where the hospital is located. There were many displays of support for us--cars honking, and people waving. That afternoon was a beautiful sight of colorful scrubs and white coats kneeling in silence. It brought the hospital employees and LSUHSC employees together through a lasting and very emotional time for all.
Notably, LSU physician leadership knelt among all facets of the hospital workforce. Dr. Charles Chappuis, Associate Medical Director and Section Chief of Surgery, said, “I thought it was the right thing to do, to send the message to all of our employees that this was important. It was important to everyone. It was a travesty and an injustice and I thought that it was important for me to take a stand. It would have been easy for me to skip it, but I didn’t think I should take the easy way out. It meant something to me and those who were with me participating. Weeks after, people came up and said that they really appreciated that I did that. I did not do it just for me. I thought it was the right thing to do.”
Little did we know that the choice of taking a knee would be the start of earning a level of trust that would carry forward in the days and months to come.
As all of the unknowns surrounding COVID continued to force their way into everyone’s personal and professional lives, “frontline” workers were called to receive the vaccine. University Hospital and Clinics CEO Katie Hebert reached out for assistance with a hurdle she faced in her efforts to have as many hospital employees as possible vaccinated against COVID-19. Personnel in Environmental Services and Food and Nutrition Services showed initial reluctance to take the vaccine. Once again, a few of us thought that we could at least bring everyone together and have a conversation. I reached out to a few of the LSU physicians and asked if they could help: Dr. James Falterman, Associate Dean for Lafayette Affairs; Dr. Marilyn Marshall, Program Director for the Family Medicine Program in Lafayette; Dr. Nicholas Sells, Section Chief of the Department of Internal Medicine and Director of Infectious Disease, HIV and Viral Hepatitis Clinics; and Dr. Charles Chappuis, Section Chief of Surgery. They all said, “We are in…when do we start?”
The team hosted two separate open space conversations with employees at the hospital to listen to their reservations. It wasn’t a lecture, and it wasn’t scripted. We sat among them and just started by letting them know our reasons for taking the vaccine. From there, the questions poured in and some were not as clinical, but more so the ability for them to know that they had information and could reflect on that information to make an informed decision. It gave employees a chance to ask questions about COVID-19, the vaccine, their concerns, and the concerns of their family members.
“I was hoping that by showing my vulnerability, it would allow them to see that I, too, was afraid as a physician. This fear may develop trust. We are one and the same and hopefully seeing the fear or the question marks above my head…they could see that I could relate to their fear. Taking the vaccine was my way to step up and say ‘we can do this…we got this,’” said Dr. Marshall.
We call ourselves The Vaccine Education Crew, and soon we were called upon by our partner hospital to come and do the same for other departments. One of the physician members of the Intensivist group in Lafayette, Dr. Brad Broussard, called and asked for our help outside of Lafayette. He said that a nursing home group that he interacted with was having similar challenges. They had several locations that had less than 10% of their staff members vaccinated. We went to work and set up meetings on site (Houma) and later, had a couple of nursing homes stream in for a panel discussion to talk about the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine. We also forwarded various community-wide panel discussion opportunities from the Governor’s COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force so that staff members could participate online in other conversations going on throughout the state.
“I had spent months caring for patients with COVID-19 and I felt like this was the first time I could make a real difference,” said Dr. Sells. “I was caring for people day in and day out, working 16-18 hours per day, and seeing people have terrible outcomes. These spaces gave me the ability to make a difference in helping to prevent this deadly illness. Depending on the setting, I felt partly encouraged that people were excited enough to ask about the vaccine, but also discouraged because everyone did not have the access to the education that was available. And I felt privileged to be able to provide that education.”
COVID-19 put everyone at risk. The physician, nurses, housekeepers, cafeteria workers…no one was excluded. We were so disconnected through the mask rule and social distancing that I think our circles of trust and connection were broken. The panel we put together allowed us to take time and listen. And once we listened, we could rebuild those circles. We were able to relay our fears, our thoughts, and our plea to keep our hospital community safe. What we built with our panel discussions were ways for our hospital community to share and feel empowered with information.
Trust. Connection. Safety. Life. Most things that create relationships were in some way, broken, doubted and became a bipartisan issue. In Lafayette, the team stepped up and created a way to rebuild…rebuild hope, trust, and community. On a larger scale, the year 2020, the pandemic, economic instability, the George Floyd murder…each of these magnified the choices that everyone was forced to make: What is our purpose and how do we have the necessary conversations that may lead to change?
“We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves. Or not.”
― Elie Wiesel
“We stand together as faculty, residents and students to denounce senseless racism in hopes of fostering the compassion we have as healthcare providers and transforming it to parts of society we touch daily,” said Dr. Falterman, Associate Dean for Lafayette Affairs.
The LSU Lafayette community continues its journey of learning and growth and plans to continue the dialogue and efforts surrounding trust, cultural humility, and racial injustice. The work is not done. In fact, it is just getting started.