10. Digital Storytelling from a Nursing Perspective: How 3-Minute Patient Videos Improve Care

Show Notes:

Maureen Leier, a registered nurse in public health and digital storyteller, joins Lisa to explore how integrating personal life stories into healthcare transforms the quality of care and creates meaningful connections between caregivers and patients.

Key Points Discussed:

• Digital storytelling creates a framework for seeing patients as complete humans with rich life experiences

• Deep listening skills are essential for both healthcare and storytelling—hearing what's not being said

• Videos of patients' lives and personalities help staff connect emotionally and provide more compassionate care

• Healthcare providers often report patients are "easier to work with" after seeing their personal stories

• Even brief 3-minute videos can dramatically shift perceptions and improve care quality

• Personal stories provide context that helps staff understand potential unmet needs more clearly that present themselves as "responsive behaviours" or "expressions of risk" 

• Digital stories can serve as a form of memorial that allows healthcare staff to process grief together

• The vulnerability of being unable to advocate for yourself highlights the importance of personal connection

• Simple elements like gentle touch, playful attitudes, and casual conversation remain vital regardless of cognitive ability

• Creating moments of joy and connection is essential because "moment to moment is all we've got"

Share your stories about how personal narratives have impacted your healthcare experience or visit Common Language Digital Storytelling for more information on digital storytelling in healthcare settings.

Check out the digital story Lisa created about a client who inspired her.  

Thank you for listening!

Do you have a question or a topic related to "capturing essence for care" that you would like discussed on the podcast? Send Lisa an email: awestruckaspirations@gmail.com

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Intro and outro music with thanks: Upbeat and Sweet No Strings by Musictown

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Capturing Essence
• 5:55 Discovering Digital Storytelling
• 11:57 Deep Listening in Healthcare
• 21:10 Videos That Change Perceptions
• 28:00 A Father's Story and Staff Connection
• 35:20 What We Want Others to Know

Transcript

Lisa: 0:05

Welcome to Capturing Essence for Care, where we discuss the importance of incorporating personal life stories into healthcare and share ideas to help you on your journey. I'm your host, Lisa Joworski. Hello everybody, my name's Lisa and I'm really excited today to be chatting with Maureen Lear. We have met each other through the Common Language Digital Storytelling Facilitator One training, and that was back in 2021. It was an awesome experience and we've developed a nice little friendship over the years. Maureen and I wanted to chat with you because not only have you done digital storytelling and see the benefits in that, but you're also a nurse and you see the value in videos, for you know health care in general, but also other reasons, more personal reasons that I'm hoping we can get into. So welcome. I'm glad you joined me for this.

Maureen: 1:07

Thank you, yeah, I'm so happy to be talking with you, thank you.

Lisa: 1:11

I was wondering if, to start, if you could share a little bit about you what, maybe, what attracted you to digital storytelling, but also your regular role and what you do every day.

Maureen: 1:24

Yeah, well, what attracted me was hearing about digital storytelling through a mutual friend and digital storyteller, melody, and she was telling me about what she was getting into and I was looking at the work she was doing and getting really excited and found myself telling other people about it and suggesting people who were into writing and other areas that seemed in line with this, you know, suggesting that they consider doing it and sending them links.

Maureen: 1:58

And then I went oh my gosh, like I want to do this. This is what that's about. So I signed up for Mike's course and decided I wanted to pursue that. And that's where you and I met and we did our level one training together, where we learned how to make a digital story ourselves, and I think we've chatted about it after the fact, just firsthand experiencing how transformative and healing it is to use this format to look at a significant moment in one's life in a way that oftentimes we don't take the time to do, and it just provides an opportunity to look at that moment and see transformation in the way you get to tell that story. So, yeah, I think I got sold on on on having a personal experience and seeing how transformative that could be.

Lisa: 3:01

That's awesome and I remember your story in particular and, um, it was really deep and powerful and emotional for me to watch. Uh, and the other part that I and I'll leave that to you whether you want to share more about that. The other part that I really enjoyed was the fact that we got to have volunteer storytellers that we worked with through that experience to practice our skills, and I had my mom as my volunteer and you had your daughter for yours, and so we kind of got to get together that way, even though it was virtually, we got to connect through those family relationships too, which was kind of cool.

Maureen: 3:40

We got to connect through those family relationships too which was kind of cool, yes, yes, and I still have such vivid memories of your 70-some-year-old mother connecting with, at the time, my 19-year-old daughter and just seeing the common humanity regardless of age and the two of them really connecting, which was so beautiful to see an appreciation of each other's stories and giving each other feedback, so it was such an intimate experience. That was on another level because of that component, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa: 4:24

Yeah, such a way to connect with people that you would have otherwise probably never met. Right, exactly, yes, yeah, yeah. So tell me more and share with everyone more about your day job. What do you do from?

Maureen: 4:40

day to day.

Lisa: 4:41

I know that you're a nurse. Maybe you could share more about that.

Maureen: 4:54

Sure. So currently I'm working in telehealth. I worked in other areas prior, so my day job currently is essentially answering calls from people who have questions about their health care, whether or not they should be seeking care, looking for resources. So that has really helped attune my listening skills, because you don't have the visual and you really have to quickly connect with a person on a level where they're going to trust you and where you can get to the essence of the concern fairly quickly and then address that concern in a way where they feel seen and heard, you know, just one-on-one um in that interaction, you know, as we're not distracted by multiple pulls on our time. So it is an interesting space. So they're not dissimilar, the difference being with digital storytelling there's such a creative component. The listening skills are similar. You're listening for themes, you're listening for what's not being said, you're listening for all sorts of things. So I find the listening skills that have been developed are very useful for digital storytelling.

Lisa: 6:12

That's a really, really good point, and the listening itself. So the reason for this whole podcast is really helping people to understand how we can really get to know the people that we're working with. You know, and seeing people for people before they're seen as patients, residents, clients, whatever else we want to call them, and so what I hear you saying is is that, in order to learn who they are and what really matters to them, that we need to take the time to listen and ask the right questions.

Maureen: 6:47

That's such a key part. What is the right question? So that is a huge skill in and of itself knowing the right question to ask. You're going to get the information based on the question you ask. So is it going to be a sort of a closed ended, dead end kind of question that really limits how a person can respond, or is it gonna be more open to give them freedom to let you know what's important to them? Yeah, so what do you is?

Maureen: 7:39

I think in our culture people feel okay sharing vulnerability around their physical bits, but oftentimes underneath that there's more to it. So an example would be getting a call from someone who's really concerned. It could be anything. I recall a conversation where the person's phoning around a choking issue, but it's not really about a choking issue. If you little deeper, the person sort of probably knows on some level they're safe.

Maureen: 8:13

You know what it came down to were a mind that produces obsessive thoughts about their health care. So being attuned to picking up on what the real issue is because if you just stick with the upfront concern without reading what's going on underneath, you're going to go down a path that might matter-of-factly answer a black and white question, but that's not really serving the person. They're likely going to continue having those obsessive thoughts despite giving very factual information. So there really needs to be an acknowledgement about how the person is feeling, about their situation, getting into that realm and then putting your efforts into sort of as we were talking about.

Maureen: 9:02

Whatever the situation this is you're suffering, this is scary for you. Um, you're not alone in that. Many people feel that way and it makes sense to care about it. So, generally, starting that way where they, a person feels seen and heard, then you can start being kind to those parts of oneself that might be attaching a lot of worry to something that is a bit of a wasted worry, and put the energy in a different direction that's going to serve them in a in a way that's kinder to themselves.

Maureen: 9:38

So you know, again they're we're doing all of this work in a way that's kinder to themselves. So you know, again, we're doing all of this work in a cultural context and that's the part of the job that I find interesting. You know, you can pretty much pick out the person who is phoning with a medical emergency and they're getting the care they need and they're getting directed the way they should be. But it's in the realm of the overall teaching and identifying maybe what some of these other issues are where they can get more appropriate support and resources is what I find fulfilling, where they're again back to this idea of asking the right question. Sometimes even the people calling us aren't asking the right question of themselves, so it takes really deep listening on our part to figure out what the right question might be. Wow.

Lisa: 10:29

There's so many things in there that are so key and that I think in healthcare we have a hard time picking up on right, like you have to be intuitive and we can't follow a script. Or like I think about when I do assessments, that you know you have these questions or things that you need to answer, but you can't just go through an assessment from number one you know and and go from there. You really need to observe the whole person and kind of sense what the challenges are or the emotions that they're feeling through their nonverbal language as well, to figure out where do I need to start, what do I need to address? How can you acknowledge and validate the person before really getting to whatever they think the problem is? Because it might be the problem, but it also might be something else. You're saying an underlying concern maybe that they're not as comfortable talking about, or maybe that they haven't even identified themselves right right, right, yeah.

Maureen: 11:29

So I think, in both the work you do and the work that I do, uh, it's more. It it is more of an art in some ways than a science. Obviously, you need to be knowledgeable, you need to know, you need to have information, you need to understand systems, but that human to human connection, where a person feels seen and witnessed and where they it enhances their own self leadership, that is an art. It takes more than just knowledge and information.

Lisa: 12:05

Yeah, yeah, there is an art to it and that's another reason why I think these conversations are so important and knowing people right. And there's, I guess, also different forms of art, if we want to make it more concrete, where, whether it's videos or whether it's you know a written article or poetry, or you know paintings, whatever it might be that helps to see the person in a different light and really understand what's important to them.

Lisa: 12:34

Or you know what?

Lisa: 12:36

what makes them them.

Lisa: 12:38

did you have something to add to that?

Maureen: 12:39

Yeah, absolutely just, you're talking about art and what's important to the person and I. And to backtrack to your question, why do you like doing this? This is such a wonderful compliment to that other kind of work because in digital storytelling you are explicitly asking the person to integrate their life story, their moment, with art, with photos, with music, with the time to write something poetically that captures their experience, and then this resonance that comes when other people view that story and then the story gets shared and then that's a gift to anyone who views a story and connecting with their own common humanity where something's going to be relatable, even if the content is different in that person's story the elements of what it means to be a human, with the full range of human emotions and joy and suffering and gain and loss all of that is relatable. So you and I were just part of a story slam and my own mother, who watched some of the stories who's 92. So in the demographic you're working with, her big comment was exactly that that she just felt this well of empathy for the storytellers, the storytellers, and isn't that what we're trying to do is? Yeah, you know, have empathy, have that imaginative leap where caregivers can put themselves in the position of the person they're caring for, where those people might have some capacity, where they can see the caregivers for who they are and have real human relationship, regardless of level of functioning Right.

Maureen: 14:42

Sometimes having that sort of getting into how it might apply to folks that you're working with, just it's such a gift to everybody involved just to connect to that common humanity of who the person was, what was important to them, who were the people important to them? What were the quirky details of their life? What kind of crazy were they? Right, because we're all crazy. What flavor of crazy were they when they were, you know, living different chapters of their life? So it's just a really beautiful to do that.

Lisa: 15:24

And I agree with everything you said, and I guess for me, I know, and I'm sure you know, that healthcare staff can be so time crunched, because there's there's so much to do, there's not enough really staff for the number of patients or residents, whatever you want to say, and so to me it's a matter of like how can we help, yeah, health care partners or health care professionals to know the people that they're working with in the most effective way?

Lisa: 16:00

right, that this is, it's not just written on paper and going okay, they're 85, they have two children, they have a husband yeah they moved from england like it's all data, rather than when you see a video and my opinion at least, my experience is holy Like all of a sudden you are emotionally connected because you've witnessed them, like their character, their personality, through their voice, you get their sense of humor. There's so many things that even if it's just one thing that you grab hold of, that's going to make you more invested and interested to learn more about that person and do a good job to make sure that they have the best quality of care right.

Maureen: 16:45

Exactly, and I recall in our training you sharing your story about how you got interested in digital storytelling and I recall that being a transformational moment for you when you viewed a story and it made all the difference to you as a caregiver of sorts. So do you want to talk more about that? Sure, there's.

Lisa: 17:13

There are actually two moments, and I think together is why I've felt so strongly that somebody needs to do something to make this happen. The first, I think, that you're mentioning I did a video about, and that's the one that's actually on the common language site under our facilitators area, but that was back, I think, in 2000. And I worked with a lady who had frontal temporal dementia and it was. I was in a day program setting at the time and her daughter would come and pick her up at the end of every day when we did the extended hours, and so the daughter ended up showing us this video. Just the nurse and I, who were working, showed this video just because she had it on her camera and said look what I found. And so it was only probably a minute or two long and it wasn't. It wasn't formed like we do with digital storytelling, but what was cool about it?

Lisa: 18:07

That was, it was her mom, so the client that I was working with, chatting to the camera and she was talking about how, you know, she took her granddaughter to school and that she ended up looking down. I just remember going, and then I looked down and I realized, like this, after taking her granddaughter to school that she still had her slippers on. But what was so endearing to me was that she was laughing at herself and which I just, I don't know, I grabbed hold of that because of like, I think that's so important that you can have a sense of humor and be able to yes, it's embarrassing, but to be able to get over it and go. I can't believe I did that, you know, and seeing herself in that light and also hearing her Irish accent and she was just very different than than the woman that I could see in that moment that I was working with her, because she was, you know, in the later stages of dementia- was more restless, couldn't sit down for any period of time?

Lisa: 19:08

um, change in perception where I think most of us, the staff who I was working with, would think you know, you know, have a seat, come on over here, have a seat, sit down and try to get her to sit and then she'd get back up again because she just she couldn't. Um where afterwards, when I would try to get her engaged, and we had this little peg board of the different shapes, if you think it's like a Montessori activity, um, where they have like circles that you'd put on the one peg, rectangles on the with the two holes, and uh, anyway, it was really cool to watch her sit there and you could see her really taking it in, looking at the shape. And then she would go one, one, two, one, two, one, two, three and she'd be counting the number of holes in the shape. And then she would go one, one, two, one, two, one, two, three and she'd be counting the number of holes in the shape in order to figure out where they would go on the pegboard.

Maureen: 20:05

and I was blown away, like it might have only been five, ten minutes, but that was five minutes, where, before you'd go, she only sits for five minutes, where, all of a sudden I was like Holy, like look how engaged she is, you know.

Lisa: 20:20

So it's a matter of what, how, how we see things to be able to reframe, and also having that knowledge of her that helped me go, wow, like I want to try, like I need to figure this out. Right, you're more invested. And so then, fast forwarding to. I became became a.

Lisa: 20:40

There's dementia care training called gentle persuasion approach, and so in that training it's a full day training that we provide to like health care staff, especially in long-term care, sometimes hospital or retirement home, and so in that training there's a video of a man named Arthur, and so it was just created, not for any purpose other than the daughter wanted her sons to remember their granddad just for being him like, for having this memory of him and what he was like, and so they ended up showing this video to the staff working with him in long-term care. And this video is like old for me, from the 1980s, and so every time I show this video it speaks to like it shows the healthcare staff. It'll fast forward and like be reflecting on the video and the staff going. You know I found he was easier to work with after seeing that video. Staff going you know I found he was easier to work with after seeing that video. You know talking about this video.

Lisa: 21:45

Here we are in late. You know the 2020s, where we still haven't modernized healthcare to think about how video can impact you know the way we do our work and how we can provide a better quality of life for people.

Maureen: 22:01

Yeah every time I teach that, I'm like yep, that's why I'm doing this, but yeah, but I'm also laughing at the, that the and we, we do this at work as well. Right, we say is it just me or is everybody more annoying today? Right, it's what, as a healthcare provider, we're bringing to the table. So I'm assuming that person said that tongue in cheek when they said, all of a sudden, the person is so much more easy to work with and really recognizing when, as the caregiver, you've had a bit of a shift. Exactly, it's not the person with dementia.

Lisa: 22:36

In that case, exactly, it's not the person with dementia.

Maureen: 22:37

in that case, I'm going to make the generous assumption and assume that caregiver was being tongue in cheek when they said that.

Lisa: 22:46

Well and maybe not right, Like, maybe it's just the fact that they didn't have that knowledge before they didn't see that whole person where, like All of it, like sure they same as me with the lady getting her to be able to do of their full humanity.

Maureen: 23:02

It softens the caregiver up to give care that's again more patient and engaged.

Maureen: 23:31

And you know, the research is super clear that people get better care if they appear to be well loved, if there's photos in the room, if there's personal items like we know this.

Maureen: 23:43

But what I also wonder about is you know it benefits the caregiver too, because obviously you don't go into that field because you prefer to be an accountant right Like you're.

Maureen: 23:56

You know, and it doesn't feel good if you're feeling rushed and you on some level realize the care you're providing could be better. And we put so much pressure on caregivers who are already in a situation where we're asking so much of them to make it even easier for the caregiver to continue to be in touch with their own humanity and to be having that context when they're caring for people. It's a gift to everybody in the situation to bring that small bit of the person's life, of who they are and were. It just makes a difference for everybody. I think in one of the stories that you shared recently, I think in one of the stories that you shared recently, the caregiver who was given the framing you know, remember the person for who they are or were and love them for who they are, and I think that to caregivers yeah, you know they might not be remembering who the person was, but they're being given a glimpse into who they were and that provides such amazing context for caregiving.

Lisa: 25:08

Yeah, the more we know, the better we do right. Yes absolutely yes. So do you mind sharing either in your digital storytelling experience or in your regular work experience, or even your personal? I know that you've created a video, I think, for your dad, and I'm wondering if you can give an example of how capturing essence helps a person going forward, like being able to highlight what really matters to a person and then how people received that information and kind of the outcome. If you have an example, that you can share.

Maureen: 25:50

Yeah, probably the most relevant example would be the story that I did with my father and that, honestly, was done in the context of my mom and dad aren't getting any younger and they've had their health challenges. So I want to make sure I do this in a timely way, and I was also practicing my skills. So this was early days of you and I coming out of our training and looking for opportunities to continue to use our skills. So they were, you know, sort of easy guinea pigs. They were very accommodating, and so the process itself working with them was incredibly rewarding because we just had conversations we never would have had, because you're in the position of the facilitator, of just asking curious questions. So you kind of get away of your usual family roles and the usual predictable conversations, where you know having different kinds of conversations, and I was just learning more about them as humans than I had ever known, and it was really interesting to sort of set up that dynamic In terms of that story.

Maureen: 26:59

Specifically, my dad subsequently, after we did the story, really had some significant health challenges, was in the hospital for a really long time and then ended up in long-term care. So initially the staff didn't see the story and my dad, who was fully there, cognitively his speech was just affected and so it would have been easy to assume he was nonverbal or you know had other challenges that would make it difficult to interact with him. And he advocated for himself with one of the staff one day where he got really mad and he said quit throwing me around, like whatever he said I don't know the exact words right, the care was a bit rough, right, because it can be that tendency when you've got a lot of people to take care of, you're trying to get physical work done. And so he himself had that interaction with the staff member and their relationship changed after that, but where the staff saw the story, and so my dad really actually got tenderized in that experience where he's vulnerable and in a care situation and he's still fully cognitive and a deep thinker. So it was a super interesting experience for him.

Maureen: 28:24

Once he kind of had that interaction. He himself also worked two ways, like he was engaging with the staff and asking them questions and that kind of thing. So in a bit of a reversal it's not sort of the same experience you had, where you see the story up front and then it affects the caregiving. In my dad's case he was actually able to make a real great connection with a number of the staff and where it was interesting was when he eventually I'm going to start getting a little choked up when he died the staff it was so beautiful to see the staff take the time and to, as a family, acknowledge that the staff was also grieving and that they had a right to grieve, as opposed to the family coming in and taking over the situation and diminishing the role they had played. So it was really beautiful to basically, as a family, say we are going to clear out so that you can be with his body. And yeah, it was so beautiful and 20 staff members you know were in that room for a good hour, right.

Maureen: 29:46

And it's just such a beautiful honoring that everybody's affected and, again, if you want people to stay in touch with their own humanity and not get into that mindset where you're a piece of work that I need to accomplish give them opportunities to be human to, you know, to experience their own grief, as opposed to walling up, because they're dealing with grief and loss all the time with their residents, the people they care for, and so what was interesting is, the story actually came after the fact and we provided it to the staff and the doctor, the attending doctor, and they all gathered at some point a week or two later and they all watched it together as a sense, you know, kind of like a mini memorial that they were able and you know the staff reported back that it was really poignant for them and they all were able to collectively come to their tears and, you know, honor both themselves and the person that they had cared for.

Maureen: 30:54

So it's just humanizing at any at any point in the process when a person with a lot of fear and anxiety comes into a setting like that. They've led a life and now, at the most vulnerable point of their lives, they're coming into a setting where they don't have a lot of control right and they don't have um connections initially, just like any of us going into any new social setting. Yeah, so it just seemed like what a slick way, really like what? Enough, as you point out, what an efficient way. Three minutes videos are long three minutes at the front end to get to know somebody you know at any point in the process or at the at the other end to sort of honor life. So yeah, it was again in that setting, saw how profound that medium could be.

Maureen: 31:49

I also had the experience when my dad I would go to ice cream socials with my dad, with the residents, and be at a table and just getting to hear people's stories and be at a table and just getting to hear people's stories and wow, just you know they're also curious. Asking a little bit about what I do and the stories that came around storytelling and how eager people were to share their stories and just an absolute hunger for sharing some of their own autobiography. I mean there would be unlimited opportunity. I mean I just even in that moment, you know, to have screenings. I was talking with the residents oh, my gosh, if we were able to do some of your stories which were incredible, like you know. Teacher in one room.

Maureen: 32:35

We're going to lose those stories, like that generation, all that amazing. You know those lives that were lived in that time frame.

Maureen: 32:43

But we were talking about even the, the opportunity of having movie night where residents shared their stories um so I know that, you know these were all people who still were didn't have dementia right and it would be a different situation in for different specific populations. But just no matter which way you look at it, for any group of people just the storytelling opportunities are unending. And yes, to make those connections for everybody involved, just to create a sense of community and connectedness, it's just so much potential there, so much potential.

Lisa: 33:24

Wow, Thank you for sharing that. That's so beautiful and I love hearing that. So the fact first, that it wasn't, it wasn't perfect right, and that your dad had this wait a minute like stood up for himself. But then, also also that there was such a it sounds like such a connection, you know like a relationship that they had with him.

Lisa: 33:48

Yeah, and it I don't know the fact that he formed such important, you know significant relationships with the different staff in their own ways, you know they took from it what they needed and it left an impact on them. Where they spend a good hour in the room with him at the end is just, it's beautiful, and I think it helps everyone, hopefully by listening to this. That time crunched and everything else, but we're all in it because we care and because we're compassionate and that the people do matter. Everybody does matter. It's a matter of being given the time to grieve, to be there, to learn to, to take it all in throughout all all steps of that journey, right, the the life journey. Yeah, anyway, I just really appreciate you sharing that and I I know that was a deep story.

Lisa: 34:42

I appreciate you and I could probably have more conversations. So if you're willing to come back and chat again, I would love that. If you were to not be able to speak for yourself and I know that's maybe a hard question to answer but say, say, there was a point where you weren't able to advocate for yourself, what would you want other people to know about you in order to give you or provide the best possible care, whatever that healthcare system might look like to you? But what would you think people would need to know about you?

Maureen: 35:23

Oh my gosh, I can feel my chest tightening up and tears welling just at that thought of being in that position. Wow, that just really tenderizes a person immediately when you ask that question. It's a good question for caregivers, right?

Lisa: 35:43

Yeah, I think none of us we're afraid to talk about it, and I think that's the reason we don't do advanced care planning. Why we don't talk about end of life is because holy, like that's pretty concrete and final. But we just never know, right. You just never know when we won't have a say and when we won't have that ability to speak up for ourselves.

Maureen: 36:08

Yeah, that. But also just that sense of how vulnerable people who are nonverbal are right, that sense of vulnerability can be felt immediately just thinking about that question. Yeah, people to know that tone and attitude are more important than words and um, you can still feel connected, even if you know I still want to feel connected to humans, even if I can't talk. Even if I can't talk, and even if I were at a point where my own thoughts are scattered, that isn't as important as just maybe gentle, physical touch, or I might still appreciate your playful attitude, that I can still experience joy. And if you were in the room caring for me, I'd be happy to hear you babble on about anything like just versus someone coming to care for me and being silent. That would maybe make me feel even more isolated.

Maureen: 37:28

So, even if I can't talk, I would probably want a caregiver to be engaging with me and talking and telling stories. Right, I think we want to hear stories and be engaged in stories, no matter our level of functioning. And I might want to tell me about your family. I want to hear about your kids, right? Even if I help expand my world, I think that's what we do for each other.

Maureen: 37:51

We still have imagination and we can expand each other's worlds, particularly when, in that setting, the world can be quite small, and so I think I would want my world expanded. I'd still want to have someone putting on some music that maybe I liked when I was more cognitive. I might want to still be seeing my room decorated with color that could give me joy in a moment to moment basis. I think it would bring it back to that idea that, as humans, all we've got is this moment to moment to moment. Those moments actually matter because that's really all we've got. Moment to moment, those moments actually matter because that's really all we've got, no matter our level of functioning. So help make my moment, if you're engaging with me, a moment that makes my day feel better. That's what I would hope for, and I suppose, as a caregiver, when it's such a powerful invitation to try to engage that imagination of what would that be like if I were that person. I think that's such a powerful talking about powerful questions. That's a really powerful question.

Lisa: 39:00

Yeah, it's good for us all to be able to reflect. I would want people to know. I think, like the the example I gave of the ladies video that I saw just by fluke years and years ago, that sense of humor. But when I say that I mean a gentle and not crass sense of humor you know, like just a lightheartedness about somebody take life too seriously.

Lisa: 39:25

Don't come on and expect me to know things or do things right. So patience, I guess, is important to me. Yeah, Like just and being compassionate, but being able to see it Like. I want to feel that calmness, yes yeah, yeah.

Maureen: 39:42

That's so funny, because that was the first thing I thought when you asked that question was you're articulating it better than I did that gentleness, but also a bit of a cheekiness. Right, we can still be. You can still be a little cheeky and playful right, yeah yeah but I don't want people to make me feel dumb.

Lisa: 40:01

You know, I don't expect things that I might not be able to do yeah yeah, appropriate, like hugs.

Lisa: 40:09

I worry about, like you hear about, how teachers can't hug their students and I worry about even in, say, long-term care and hospital, that I mean it has to you. You have to obviously read the signs and read whether it's appropriate or not, but I, I wish and I hope that there's still a place for appropriate touch, like, if it seems like the right time to give a hug, I want to hug, you know. Yeah, I agree, all of those things that just humanize us as people rather than the patient healthcare professional relationship, exactly, exactly.

Maureen: 40:43

Yeah, it's so interesting, like again in those last days with my dad. Some days their words were, words were exhausting, words were too much. So sometimes we would just sit and his hands were sore and I would just rub his hands for half an hour, just a little massage, and then, you know, back to the caregivers. As a family they were so intimately involved with my father's body and they were very kind and gentle that it just felt so appropriate that they were the ones who continued to be in contact with his body, with bathing and preparing after he had died, because that was a big part of that relationship and I felt it was really honoring them and it was beautiful that they could close the loop on that relationship in that way. Yeah, that's a really important point.

Lisa: 41:37

I love that. Wow, maureen, thank you for this conversation. This just makes me know that. This is why I feel like these conversations are so important, and I think there's a lot from just this conversation that you and I had that people could pick out and use or implement or think of differently, as they're thinking about capturing essence, you know, and how can we do that and how can we people, how can we help people just be seen for who they are? Right, yeah.

Maureen: 42:08

Yes, man, it was so curious who knew which way this conversation was going to go. But um, that's sort of the beauty of not knowing what's sometimes you know your own thinking till you are asked a question. You have the opportunity to see what you're thinking about something and, uh, yeah, it nice to. It's nice to have casual conversations that are free ranging and fun, and it's also nice on occasion to have a conversation where, yeah, you're asking more pointed questions. Like it just makes the conversations more interesting, right.

Lisa: 42:47

Yeah.

Maureen: 42:48

Yeah, absolutely.

Lisa: 42:50

Maureen, thank you for this. It's been such a wonderful pleasure and I'm hoping that this leads to more conversations, because I feel like you and I see things very similarly when it comes to kind of blending digital storytelling, the impact of it as well, as I think our roles in healthcare help us to speak to this.

Maureen: 43:12

We always get excited when we start chatting about the potential for storytelling in healthcare, so it gives me a boost as well. So thanks for the opportunity. Thank you, maureen.