It was the phone calls‹up to a thousand a day‹that makes Rhonda Hewitt shake her head and smile.
The Outpatient Department administrative assistant was on duty during the blizzard that flash-froze any hope of a normal routine in early January. Fielding calls from patients from all over the country wanting to know if the CC was open, volunteers with four-wheel drive vehicles, and staff members needing transportation accounted for most of those calls.
Coordinating in-house accommodations for staffers electing to spend the night was added to Outpatient Department duties. "It was interesting," Hewitt says, "everybody came together. They were nice, cordial, joking about getting wake-up calls and breakfast in bed."
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The logistics of making sure that there was always a place for the more than 500 staffers who overnighted brought some unexpected dividends.
"We had to do bed checks in the evening," adds Charmaine Marchan, Outpatient Department administrative assistant. "People would make popcorn and invite us to chitchat. Everyone was laughing, getting along. It was nice to see. It did more than any seminar could to bring people together." The overnighters nicknamed Marchan "den mother," and the camaraderie was infectious. "I met people I always see in the halls, but never knew their names. I remember thinking, ŒI'm glad I'm here.'"
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It was hectic, but Housekeeping and Fabric Care Department members stuck together, adds Jean Green, department assistant chief.
"We focused on patient-care units, the OR, and special procedures areas," she said, "and tried to keep the entrances mopped. It meant that we all pitched in and did everything."
Department members also had to make sure rooms for CC staffers were cleaned. Since the rooms were used in shifts, that meant at least two check-out cleanings a day.
But there was time for a little fun, too. "When things were slow, we ate together in the locker room, potluck style. We worked and laughed like family. It made me very proud of all our people."
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De Gladden is a Department of Transfusion Medicine nurse who works with patients who need apheresis, the process of separating whole blood into components.
"Patients on some protocols have to be apheresed at a certain time and we want to do everything we can to make sure we are here when they need us," she points out.
That's why she spent part of the blizzard camped out in the transfusion medicine department. "If we skip one part of a protocol, the patient may have to start over," she explains. "Continuity is the key. We've come this far with the patients and that's why we're here."
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Dan Sands, Nursing Department, welcomed the chance to put his year-old, four-wheel-drive to the test. "There was no snow last year and I was disappointed" he admits with a laugh. "That Sunday morning I showed up at the admissions desk. I've been a staff nurse and a head nurse, so I know the snow-emergency drill."
That drill took Sands and his four-wheel-drive all across the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia picking up staff and taking them back home.
When one patient in the District on a drug development protocol needed some blood drawn, Sands and another nurse headed out. "If you miss a stage of the protocol, the protocol is ruined," he explains.
"We were coming and going all the time," he adds. "As long as there was more snow than cars, it was fun."
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To staffers like Marina Chen, there's a simple reason for reporting to work despite crippling weather: "Patients and staff depend on us."
A medical technologist in DTM's immunology section, Chen does hepatitis viral screening for blood donors and patients.
"I was on the backup schedule, but I was sure my coworker wouldn't be able to make it in," she explains. Chen, her husband, and teenaged son started digging out of their Virginia home on Sunday for the trip to the CC on Monday.
Out before the snow plows, the Chen family cleared their street by hand with shovels. "We know things have to be done," she says. "I was committed."
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Barbara Corey, head nurse for both 13 West and the 13th floor clinic, stayed for the long haul. "I was on call for the [nursing] service, had worked on Saturday, and just came on back in on Sunday."
Many of the nurses were in the same boat, staying for at least one overnighter. "Our patients thought it was wonderful, saying they were glad we got to see what it's like to be here overnight. Nurses have had to do this before, usually for not such a long time. It was a close-knit group, congenial and supportive."
And the snow enhanced the "kid" in some of the unit's pediatric patients. One went down to the sun deck and stamped out messages to the 13th floor staff in the snow. The same patient tiptoed in to wake sleeping nurses with a chipper "time for your temperature," Corey adds with a laugh.
"One mom staying in the Children's Inn even cooked a meal for us and it was welcome."
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Richard L. Gourdine, a phlebotomist in the Clinical Pathology Department, has weathered the Clinical Center's last four snow storms and he wasn't about to miss this one.
He and colleague Wayne G. Griffin decided to just stay put during the historic blizzard. "There were only two of us that weekend," Gourdine explains, "when normally there are four. If we left, I wasn't sure we could get back and patient care would suffer. I was glad I didn't have to be out in the snow, glad to be able to make a difference. We kept things open and rolling. It was a team effort, and we couldn't have done it by ourselves."
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Annual address set for Feb. 29
Mark your calendars for Feb. 29 at 2 p.m. in Masur Auditorium. That's when Dr. John Gallin, CC director, will present his annual address and preside over an awards ceremony. He plans to update employees on CC initiatives, including results of the Options Team review and plans to strengthen the CC mission.
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CC rounds go nationwide with CenterNet
CC Grand Rounds will go nationwide again this month as its cooperative program with CenterNet, the Academic Health Center Network, continues.
Interactive presentations by Dr. Steven Rosenberg, NCI chief of surgery, and Dr. Mark Hallett, NINDS clinical director, will be broadcast live at noon on Feb. 14 to 50 of the country's medical schools.
Rounds are presented in Lipsett Amphitheater. Seating for overflow attendees will be in Masur Auditorium.
CenterNet is a joint project of Healthcare Management Television and the Association of Academic Health Centers. Five of the CC Grand Rounds will be carried by the network in 1996.
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From the director: CC staffers pull together during trying times
by Dr. John I. Gallin
CC Director
It has been a season of the un-precedented. Just as the government prepared to shift back into gear following the longest shutdown in history, the Blizzard of Œ96 buried us in snow. It proves that the "politics of nature" can be just as unpredictable as the "nature of politics."
I commend and thank those of you who put in the extra effort to keep the Clinical Center functioning during both events. I also appreciate the patience and perseverance demonstrated by those of you who were furloughed. It has been a stressful time full of uncertainty.
One source of uncertainty was removed when funding for NIH was approved for the remainder of the year. The $11.9 billion budget approved by Congress represents a 5.7 percent increase over FY95 levels, which is terrific news for the Clinical Center. Secure funding through September 30 means that we will not be vulnerable to any other furloughs this year. It also means that we can continue with architectural design and initial construction planning of the new clinical research center.
Plans for the new building, results of the Options Team review of the Clinical Center, proposals to strengthen our mission, and recent initiatives are among the topics I plan to cover during the Director's Annual Address and Awards Ceremony Feb. 29 at 2 p.m. in Masur Auditorium. I look forward to seeing you there.
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Chalmers, former CC director, dies Dec. 20
Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, CC director and NIH associate director for clinical care from 1970-1973, died Dec. 20 at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. He was 78.
He left NIH to serve as president of the Mount Sinai Medical Center and dean of the School of Medicine, posts he held until 1983.
Dr. Chalmers' Dec. 23 New York Times obituary quoted Dr. John W. Rowe, president of the Mt. Sinai Medicine Center: "[Chalmers] forced doctors to be intellectually rigorous about the treatments they recommended. He set the stage nationally for using randomized clinical tests rather than anecdote to determine treatment methods."
Throughout his career, Dr. Chalmers was an advocate of controlled clinical trials to evaluate drugs and therapeutic techniques. His primary research interests while at the CC were liver disease, clinical trials, and epidemiology. Under his guidance, the Mt. Sinai medical school established the country's first department of geriatrics. He developed the department of biostatistics there, now the department of biomathematical sciences, and pioneered the use of meta-analysis in medical research. The approach pools and analyzes results of similar studies conducted independently.
After leaving Mt. Sinai, Dr. Chalmers held positions at Harvard, Tufts, and Boston University, and served as chairman of the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center from 1983-1993. In 1992, he founded a company‹Meta Works‹that used meta-analysis to study the effectiveness of treatment of diseases such as heart disease and cancer.
The son and grandson of doctors, Dr. Chalmers was born in Forest Hills, N.Y., attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, and earned the M.D. degree from Columbia University in 1943. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Frances Talcott of West Lebanon, N.H., and four children. Memorial services were held Jan. 5 at Tufts Medical School in Boston.
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