Offering Care, Not a Cure

_{May 13, 2022}
NOTE: This was taken from the blog of Foundations Health Solutions leader Bob Speelman. Bob works closely and frequently communicates with our Foundations Health facilities. It is so inspiring to see how each care team embodies the vision of our founder and nursing home developer, Brian Colleran, to be "A Culture of Care."

I went to The Home at Taylor’s Pointe in Cincinnati yesterday and worked with an amazing Nursing Assistant by the name of Tori Miles. I quickly found out that Tori’s Mom was Cindy Smiley. Now I worked with Cindy back in 2017 at Glen Meadows in Hamilton. Cindy was an incredible Nursing Assistant. She loved her residents and only called off one time in 21 years. Tori told me that her mom is now retired, but I could tell quickly Tori was cut from the same cloth.

As we worked together, I discovered another family connection. Tori’s cousin is Anita Bryant, the Dietary Manger at The Home at Hearthstone and the winner of our companies' “Last Tray Standing” completion, which recognizes the most talented and creative Dietary Department in our company.

Tori has long-term care quality in her blood. She comes from a family that cares about making our residents lives the best they possibly can be and going above and beyond in everything they do. Tori is thirty-three and became a Nursing Assistant back in 2013. Tori has been at Taylor’s Pointe for three years now and works on their Memory Care Unit.

I was incredibly impressed with how loving and patient Tori was with the residents. The pride that Tori takes in the care of her residents on her unit warmed my heart. I asked Tori what she does for fun, and she said she bought a home a couple years ago. She laughed and said, “I watch HGTV and get idea’s for my house. All my free time is spent on home renovation projects.”

I had an amazing time with Tori at Taylor’s Pointe and left there knowing our residents on Tori’s Memory Care Unit are incredibly loved and well taken care of by an amazing person and my new friend. Tori wasn’t working on the Rehab Unit, where the residents come to get better quickly and go home. Tori was working on the Memory Care Unit, where she wasn’t able to offer them a cure but rather care. Tori offered care, dignity and love in spades.

“If to be human is to be limited, then the role of caring professions and institutions – from surgeons to nursing homes – ought to be aiding people in their struggle with those limits. Sometime we can offer a cure, sometime only a salve, sometime not even that. But whatever we can offer, our interventions, and the risks and sacrifices they entail, are justified only if they serve the larger aims of a person’s life. When we forget that, the suffering we inflict can be barbaric. When we remember it the good we do can be breathtaking.”

- Atul Gawande

Bob Speelman, STNA