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Health Care Hero Nurse: KAREN MCMILLAN
By Holly Fisher
Special Projects Editor
The maternity ward is supposed to be a happy place full of joy, excitement and new beginnings. But sometimes sadness and loss creep in, and when they do, expectant parents go from happy to heartbroken.
That’s where Karen McMillan, a labor and delivery nurse at Trident Medical Center, steps in offering comfort.
“Unfortunately, babies still die in this day and age,” McMillan said, noting 3 million babies were stillborn last year.
In nursing school, McMillan knew she wanted to work in labor and delivery but never imagined she would focus on perinatal loss. In fact, it was the part of the job that scared her the most—how to deal with her patients during such a difficult time.
But something changed in McMillan when, four years ago, a patient arrived at Trident Medical Center on her due date but the nurses and doctor couldn’t detect the baby’s heartbeat. When McMillan came on for her shift, the woman was about to deliver what was most likely a stillborn baby.
She asked McMillan, “They told me my baby’s not breathing. Have you ever known them to be wrong?”
It was a heart-wrenching question that to this day brings tears to McMillan’s eyes.
“At that time, there was little perinatal support,” she said. “I thought if I were the patient, what would I want done?”
So McMillan stayed all day with the woman. She bathed and dressed the baby girl and they took some photos. The grieving mother hugged McMillan and thanked her for not being afraid to come into the room as so many of the other hospital staff were.
Impacted by the experience, McMillan resolved to help parents through this trying ordeal. She realized the Charleston area offered very little in the way of support for those going through a perinatal loss.
“There was nothing in the community, no support,” she said. “I thought, ‘This is unacceptable.’ ”
McMillan and a colleague attended a Bereavement Services training program called RTS (formerly known as Resolve Through Sharing) and came back to Trident with a number of ideas.
Three years ago they started a Walk to Remember, an event each October in Summerville, honoring babies whose lives were cut short. That event three years ago also kicked off a perinatal loss support group, Angels of Ours. In 2008, the group will meet monthly instead of every other month.
Last year, McMillan helped launch the Charleston Alliance of Perinatal Bereavement, which is open to anyone, such as nurses or funeral home staff, who wants to make a difference in the lives of the affected families.
“It’s all about knowing you’re not alone,” said McMillan of her work forming these support efforts.
“Thankfully, most of my job is joy but the sad is very, very sad,” she said. “When I’m in that patient’s room, it’s not about anything but what that family is going through and what I can do to help them get through it.”
In August, McMillan lost her home in a fire. She is grateful none of her family was hurt. In fact, the experience, she said, has made her a better nurse. A mother of four children and one stepchild, McMillan said she can’t imagine having lost one of her children in the fire.
So she is more than a little sympathetic to the grief parents experience when they lose a newborn child. “They never even get to say hello before they have to say goodbye.”
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