Nurse Ruth Exis finds that connecting with patients has never mattered more
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Meet more of Charlotte’s health care heroes
We’re sharing the stories of health care heroes in the Charlotte area who are helping to make a dent in the fight against COVID-19 — while making a difference in the lives of patients and their families.
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Ruth Exis, a nurse on a COVID-19 floor at Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center, gets daily reminders she is appreciated.
One thank-you note stood out; it floored her.
“Thank you for risking your life every day to take care of my dad,” it read, tacked to the nurse’s station on her floor recently.
Exis, who came to the United States from her native Cameroon, couldn’t imagine being anything other than a nurse. In some ways, she views her husband, a pastor from Haiti, as the real hero for staying home these days with their four children.
However, Exis is reminded of the danger of her job each time she dons the layers of protective gear required to enter a COVID patient’s room. The nurses in her team have an expression – “PPE buddies” – for the way they inspect each other to make sure they’re properly gowned and masked to guard against infection during the pandemic.
That equipment is a big departure from how Exis practiced nursing five weeks ago, when she could enter a patient’s room just in her scrubs and no mask. Necessary as personal protective equipment (PPE) is, it interferes with nurses connecting with patients at a time when connection is particularly important.
‘Everything to them’
“Their families can’t visit them,” Exis said of recent hospital protocols. “We’re it for them: We’re their nurses, we’re their emotional support. We’re everything to them.”
Exis said working from behind a mask the last month has taught her just how much she normally communicates with facial expressions, rather than words. That’s made her far more mindful interacting with patients. She is more mindful of their emotional needs, particularly in prioritizing setting up Zoom video calls between patients and family so they feel less isolated.
“It’s a lot of intentionality,” said Exis, a graduate of CPCC and Queens University. “Take a pause and a step back from all of the tasks; pause to have a human connection with the patient. That has been critical.”
Exis says the stresses the pandemic placed on health care have raised nurses’ confidence in what they can manage. The only concern is becoming too comfortable.
“It’s getting more normal for us, but in that sense, also kind of dangerous – when you get comfortable, you make mistakes,” Exis said. “We’re double-checking each other – we have our PPE buddies. It’s everyone’s job to make sure everyone is safe.”
A calling
The nurses on Exis’ floor (an intermediate COVID unit for patients not needing ventilators) receive daily expressions of gratitude: cards, letters, food.
“I’ve never felt more appreciated for a job I do every day,” said Exis, who joined Novant Health in 2014.
“You always assume you’re taken for granted in your work. We’ve all had that feeling. For someone to take the time to acknowledge what we do every day is very moving.”
Even in a pandemic, Exis can’t imagine doing anything else.
“I love being a nurse. I love taking care of patients. My whole focus in life is to make someone feel good about themselves – if it’s physical or if it’s emotional. Whatever they need,” she said.
“To me, it’s just a calling: I eat, sleep and drink it all day long.”
