Lyn’s Research Experience
Lyn is a Grade 11 student at Seven Oaks Met School (SOMET) with a passion for patient care, scientific research, and the arts. During her third year at SOMET, she chose to explore the healthcare field, where her growing interest in the sciences led her to an internship at St. Boniface Hospital.
Over the past six months, Lyn has worked alongside Dr. Shuangbo Liu and the Interventional Cardiology Research Institute Research Team on a quality improvement project examining the discharge education provided to patients recovering from heart attacks. The project involved developing and conducting a comprehensive survey that explored five key areas of the patient experience, including the education patients received, their understanding of important recovery topics, and both the physical and emotional aspects of life after discharge.
Through this experience, Lyn gained valuable insight into the importance of effective patient education and the critical role healthcare professionals play in supporting patients beyond their hospital stay. The project reinforced the meaningful impact that clear communication and continued education can have on improving patient outcomes and empowering individuals throughout their recovery.
Tell us 3 things you learned about working in the hospital or being part of the research team
Being comfortable with not knowing
“A lot of my experience at the hospital was learning from others, whether that be my mentors, researchers or people working on the wards. Sometimes it felt really silly asking what seemed like basic questions to my coworkers or the ward desk because I was still learning a lot, even something as simple as reading the discharge board or bed numbers. It was the recognition that it was ok to ask and that every time I was met with kindness and understanding from those around me, leaving me with a deep feeling of appreciation and admiration to all those in healthcare willing to teach and help others everyday.”
Being resilient
“Working with patients meant meeting and talking with people who come from all different walks of life, have had all different kinds of experiences inside and outside the hospital. Giving surveys has taught me to be understanding with people who come from all places and doing my best to make sure their hospital stay is enjoyable, as stress free as possible and allows them to speak to their own experience. I found that a lot of patients could be apprehensive about surveys but once we spoke and they understood that this survey was not to prod them, but to hear them, it truly made a difference in their attitude. Sometimes giving this support and patience could be hard, especially when people were upset or frustrated with the system, which even If I’d wanted to help I could not change. It taught me so much about pushing past my reservations, sticking with people and believing in the goodness and kindness of others even when it felt impossible. I have seen this resilience in every healthcare worker I’ve met over my time at St. Boniface, and I must say it has taught me so much about myself, about working with and striving to be my very best self for my patients.”
Dedication of people
“Going into my internship at the hospital I did some research and had to acquire some certificates relating to my work with ethics / patients. It was very thorough but actually seeing all the work that goes into research is something else! Everyone is so dedicated to the process and even then it's really surprising just how long it can take to participate in a clinical study or research opportunity. Working with the research team taught me so much about the process and care taken to protect and ensure patients were informed and had options while we also worked towards trialing and improving our information. You can see the dedication to putting patients' needs first and foremost everywhere in the hospital, from meeting patients where they’re at with our education to the personal time and care everybody is given, it is truly a testament to the amazing hearts and kindness of everybody, big or small, giving their best.”
What was the most “eye opening” part of your project or time in the hospital?
“Working with patients was the absolute highlight of my time at the hospital, it was something I was really nervous about going into as I didn’t have a lot of prior experience working in communicative roles. It was really interesting meeting so many different kinds of people who, although having gone through such a difficult and terrifying experience, were so kind and full of joy. Working with patients has been such a wonderful experience and has taught me a lot about myself and where I want to take my future. Although currently I’m unsure what I would like to pursue going forward I am sure that wherever life takes me will include working with people. It has taught me the importance of that real, human connection and shown me just how valuable it can be and inspired me to seek it out wherever I may be.”
What were the key findings of your project? Is this what you expected to find?
“Over the course of 4 months we interviewed 93 patients about their discharge experience and the education they received during their stay at the hospital. Overall we found that patients were very happy with the education they received, understood the information we gave and had a generally positive experience with us at the hospital showing an over 80% positive response rate in every category. A key finding for the project was about the length of time between when a patient received information and when we gave them the Quality Improvement Survey. Generally we saw a decline in retention that although is normal and expected, reinforces our understanding and the importance of continuing education even after someone is discharged from the hospital. It was pretty conducive to what we thought results would be, although as I’ve mentioned it did bring to attention wait time surrounding patients education and discharge times. Overall I am very happy with the results from the research and our commitment shown for patient care, education and comprehension.”
Based on what you have learnt, if you had a magic wand and a million dollars, what would you change or improve about the patient's discharge process?
“The biggest hurdle I saw my patients have with the discharge process was communication. We do our best to always keep patients informed about their care, the decisions being made and timelines, but oftentimes when I would meet a patient their first question would be “When am I being discharged?” or “Am I being discharged now?”. As a research intern I didn’t have all the information, I didn’t know discharge times or personal information about any given person, which made answering these questions difficult if not impossible. If I could change something about my patients experience with the discharge process it would be creating a better, streamlined way of informing patients on updates surrounding their discharge timeline. There were many, many times when after seeing me and completing a survey, which entails receiving all prior education and being prepped for discharge, I would sit there for hours waiting to hear any kind of update regarding their care.
Often when I spoke with patients they’d already been waiting hours without being told why, and would be immensely frustrated that there was, to them, no reason for their continued stay. This leads to a negative experience surrounding their time with us, as well as levels of stress regarding their lives, such as getting rides or arranging plans, most had hard times contacting family or friends because they themselves were unsure. A point to this is also a lack of people to help facilitate the discharge process. Often I would be waiting on one or two people to give my patient education for hours simply because we didn’t have the resources to adequately be in so many places at once. We do our best for these people, we give our all but sometimes this can lead to frustrating situations for both providers and patients. Overall I believe a better more communicative system would benefit everybody in the hospital, giving ur patients time to make preparations and feel at ease knowing that they aren’t waiting aimlessly for no particular thing. This could be done by introducing new systems, new roles, filling gaps found in the discharge process, maybe even through new technology designed for this purpose. There is a lot of work to be done to help improve upon the healthcare system as a whole, but I am very proud of the work, dedication and kindness I saw during my time at St Boniface that no magic wand could ever replace.”
