My husband was recently a patient at the Hilo Benioff Medical Center. Without getting into too much detail, it was a scary night.
We arrived at the ER around 2 a.m., and there was a lot of waiting on my part while he was diagnosed, treated and admitted. As I was waiting outside the ICU until I could go in and see him, my mind and heart were spinning, despite my experiencing all this on only two hours sleep.
At 6 a.m. that day, I was not sure what the prognosis was. I did what everyone does: I called family, made arrangements to miss work, completed simple tasks that my tired brain could handle and that I could complete on my phone. The doctor called to give me the update, which was good. (And today my husband is recovering well.)
Throughout those hours, I am not sure anyone really knew who I was other than a worried spouse, and I found some comfort in my relative anonymity. I knew my husband was in good hands, and I just had to exercise patience. Despite enjoying the anonymity, I also found great comfort when I saw a cohort of Hawaii Community College nursing students arrive for their clinical rotation.
Their supervisor at the hospital walked up to me, pulled down her mask, and asked, “Aren’t you the UH Hilo chancellor?” I replied that I was and that I was happy to see more nurses getting trained. She told me that she herself was a UH Hilo grad, and that there had been a cohort from UH Hilo doing clinicals the day before.
She asked after my husband and asked how I was. “Better now,” I said, “seeing all these nursing students makes me happy that we are making a difference.” This is what we do at UH Hilo and Hawaii Community College; we prepare the employees for the future.
Three weeks later I sent my regrets for the Hawaii Island Health Care Conference. UH Hilo was well represented with faculty, staff and administrators from our health-related programs of pharmacy, nursing and kinesiology and exercise science. Hawaii Community College was also well represented by Chancellor Kazama and her team.
I was where I needed to be, attending to some things in Hilo, but I was happy that these conversations — which kicked off in 2022 with a partnership among Community First, UH Hilo, and Hawaii Community College — were continuing and expanding. That first convening in October 2022 had about 60 people in attendance. Now the event is much larger, more health care providers and elected officials are in the conversation, and more of our challenges are being addressed.
We have a long way to go, but it all starts with a few motivated people to address an issue, folks who are willing to help us convene the conversation, and others who can pull together the data to show us what we are doing well and where the gaps are. A little food and beverage to help move along the conversation also helps!
At the university, we talk a lot about breaking down silos, and the health care industry has modeled this behavior. When you are dealing with a serious medical situation, your physician, the specialists, the nurses, the pharmacist, sometimes the social worker and/or the dietician, all form a team around you to make sure that all facets of your treatment are coordinated. We are looking at how we can do this better with the support and training we provide our students. It’s easy to say, “it takes a village,” but what does that look like in practice?
UH Hilo is in the early stages of planning a workforce summit with Hawaii Community College, and the county, to happen in early 2025, where we will look at the current and future needs of our island, what kind of workforce preparation is already provided by the university and the community college, and by the DOE, and where we go from here.
There are many needs to be addressed, and many plans to be made, but on a nerve-wracking September night, I was very glad we started with health care.
Bonnie D. Irwin is chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her column appears monthly in the Tribune-Herald.
