Labor Day, dialysis charge nurse: Making sure patients smile

Labor Day, dialysis charge nurse: Making sure patients smile

By Brian Bethel

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Growing up, Rob Moreno dreamed of rocketing through the endless blue.

“I wanted to be a jet pilot — I wanted to go into the Air Force and fly planes,” said Moreno, whose father was career Air Force.

An honest assessment of certain skills made that occupation unlikely, he said.

“My math skills kind of sucked,” a grinning, self-effacing Moreno admitted.

But those who know the 39-year-old charge nurse at Fresenius Medical Care’s south Abilene dialysis unit say he soars above and beyond each and every day.

“I call him Superman,” said Keith Lewis, 38, one of Moreno’s patients, a toothsome grin beaming across his face. “It’s a hard job, but he always has this demeanor — he’s just under control, it never seems like it really gets to him. And he just makes you feel more comfortable.”

And, Lewis said, Moreno helps him laugh — something that makes a three-day-a-week, roughly four-hour-per-day process seem a touch shorter and several shades lighter.

“When I get here, I know he’s going to be here to make me laugh, make me enjoy my time,” he said. “It’s like a family.”

Moreno credits the multiple moves that characterized his childhood as his secret weapon when it comes to getting to know people and putting them at ease.

“You learn to make friends fast — to be talkative, to just go up to people,” he said.

And the southside center’s 128 patients have plenty of opportunity to get to know him, since Moreno works six days a week, by choice — sometimes up to 15 hours a day.

Making patients smile seems to just be part of his daily mission, whether it’s a playfully flirtatious tweak of an elderly female patient’s cheek or maintaining the banter that seem like breathing when he’s in his element.

But the ready smile turns quietly serious when it comes time to talk about the mission that underlies it all.

“These are my patients, and I want to make sure they’re well taken care of,” he said, whether it takes a bit of laughter to soothe the soul or holding the hand of a nervous newcomer.

Moreno, who worked at a local paint center before finding his career in medicine — and was a paramedic for several years before becoming a nurse — grew up learning how to work hard, he said.

“When I was 8 years old, my dad would give me a little list of yards to cut,” he said. The money he earned would be used to buy some of his own clothing.

“I didn’t own my first pair of name-brand shoes until I was a freshman because I had to pay for them myself,” he said. “My parents wouldn’t do that — if you wanted anything, you worked for it.”

Dialysis is a scary prospect for anyone, Moreno said, requiring such things as diet changes and alterations in self-concept, and many patients come to the center with special health needs.

In all cases, making them and their families comfortable is vital, he said.

As might be expected, watching a patient decline is an often painful experience, given the amount of time he spends in their company.

“It hurts,” he said, his normal bravado fading for a beat, eyes darkening subtly. “But you do what you can to help them, support them and just be their friend.”

But the light soon returns, and Moreno said his patients most often lift him up, especially when the job’s day-to-day stresses mount — his work can vary from making sure machinery as complex as any cockpit hums along efficiently to dealing with infection control to helping plan appointments.

His schedule can make spending time with his wife of 19 years, Brandi, and their two children, Jansen, 18, and Jordan, 13, challenging.

But he tries to make time for family, and loves practicing softball with his daughter when he can, as he enjoyed practicing sports with his son — who is now studying to become a nurse.

“The rewards are great,” he said of his job, especially when he gets to watch a patient’s health improve.

“You get to see them build up and become more healthy than they were before,” he said. “They start loving life, they start having a good time. And some of them just become talking machines — and that’s the best thing for me.”

http://www.reporternews.com/news/2010/sep/04/making-sure-patients-smile-is-part-of-his-daily/?print=1