Pulse
The Visitor
James Gaviser is bringing retired physicians and nurses back to the bedside to comfort patients.
Now that James Gaviser, M.D., no longer doctors the sick, he has time to visit them.
A retired plastic surgeon, Gaviser has chosen to use his experience as a physician—and also as a patient—to start a program at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis that brings retired physicians and nurses together with patients.
For Gaviser, a 63-year-old with a playful grin that spreads across his face when he talks, retirement came earlier than he planned. He was cooking dinner at his Minneapolis home when he lost his balance and began dropping things. His wife came home from work and found him sitting in the backyard. Gaviser had had a mild stroke.
Today, the effects of the stroke aren’t apparent, but Gaviser felt it had dulled some of his motor and cognitive skills, prompting his retirement in 2002. After taking it easy for a year, enjoying golf and spending time with his wife, Judy, and their two children and five grandchildren, he yearned to reconnect with medicine and volunteered with the Twin Cities Jewish Healing Program. Volunteers with the program, which is sponsored by Jewish Family and Children’s Services, provide Jewish patients with rides to and from doctor appointments, food, and hospital visits.
Thinking he could make better use of his medical background, Gaviser approached administrators at Abbott Northwestern, where he practiced for many years, about creating a program where retired physicians could listen to or just sit with patients who were feeling lonely or frightened. Sharon Dudley, former vice president of patient care services, liked the concept and introduced him to Sharon Mertz, a retired nurse, who had talked about doing something similar with nurses.
Pairing Physicians and Patients
Mertz and Gaviser spent the summer of 2005 planning what has become known as the Patient Partners program. The program connects physicians with patients whom doctors feel may need extra attention. The volunteers visit patients, provide a caring touch when needed, or, do such simple acts as hold an IV during a walk down the hall. The volunteers don’t have access to patients’ charts and are strictly prohibited from practicing medicine.
The program started in February of 2006. Since then, nearly 20 retired doctors and nurses have visited with more than 300 patients. Each volunteer works about five hours a day during one-week stints. “We’ve got the best job in town because we’re not responsible,” says Mertz, who along with Gaviser runs the program.
Mertz says Gaviser’s efforts championing the program were a key to its implementation and success. “He had been doing these kinds of visits and was trying to find a way to institutionalize this idea,” she says.
Gaviser says modern medicine offers wonderful technology and treatments but that too often physicians are too pressed for time to sit and listen and practice the art of caring. He admits that in his own practice he was frustrated that time constraints prevented him from cultivating deeper relationships with patients.
“Now my expertise is to be able to speak with patients and to give them the opportunity to tell me how they are feeling in their own way,” he says.
Even when a patient can’t be cured, medical professionals who take the time to listen can help them achieve emotional balance, which can help them live their lives, he explains.
“When we get sick, we all have some fears of what will happen in the future and feelings of loneliness. You can’t take those fears away, but you can put them into context,” he says.
Learning from Experience
Gaviser’s own medical trials have deepened his understanding of the human heart’s response to illness and honed his sense of empathy.
He spent five years on dialysis from 1975 to 1980 because of renal failure and has had two kidney transplants. The first transplant led to a serious brain infection. That kidney, which was harvested from a deceased, young woman, functioned for 13 years. When it failed, his son donated a kidney to his father. Then in 1998, Gaviser suffered a heart attack, and in 2002, he had the stroke.
Considering his own medical and work histories, you might think the last thing Gaviser would want to do is spend his retirement in a hospital. But he says helping people and listening to their stories is just in his DNA. And it squares with one of the traditions of his Jewish faith, bikkur cholim or visiting the sick. “Even when you can’t cure someone, you can still be a caring presence. And when you are a caring presence you are acting in God’s way and are doing something very spiritual. . . . That’s an idea that’s important to me.” —Scott D. Smith