By Stacey De Leon
Fifty-eight interdisciplinary UTMB students, staff, and faculty gathered for the “Elephant in the Room: Talking About Death,” a bereavement training class hosted by The Butterfly Project.
This course was offered in partnership with fellow Texas Medical Center registered nurses from Methodist Hospital. The class was eligible for continuing education credit for nurses and provided information on comfort measures and the appropriate communication used for patients and families to improve end of life care.
Hanna Lockhart, a junior nursing student, and the new vice president of The Butterfly Project said, “This course reminds you of why we decided to follow this career path in the first place, because we want to help people.”
After the seminar, The Butterfly Project held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the unveiling of the first Angel Cart. The Angel Cart was established as a comfort cart for patients and families experiencing end of life at John Sealy Hospital. The cart will be stocked with comfort items such as educational and support reading material, music, and snacks. The Angel Cart was made possible by The Butterfly Project’s members’ hard work and fundraising along with the support of The Compassionate Friends of Galveston. The cart will be placed on the antepartum floor in the John Sealy towers and will be shared by the ante and post partum floors.
Through the Angel Cart and educational events about subjects like bereavement training, The Butterfly Project strives to enhance patient care and satisfaction att UTMB.