From fear to trust: How one nurse’s gentle approach helped a patient overcome anxiety
For one patient at the University of Iowa Health Care downtown campus, Monica Tappe, RN, provided the right balance of empathy and information to transform lingering post-surgery concerns into peace of mind.
Sometimes the most powerful thing a nurse can do isn’t the hands-on administration of medication or performing a procedure. Instead, it's using their intuition to understand what a patient is feeling below the surface. Whether the patient is anxious, has questions, or is craving some calm, sometimes the most powerful thing a nurse can do is pull up a chair and find out why.
When Monica Tappe, RN, walked into one patient’s room last year, she sensed immediately that they were feeling vulnerable and scared, but trying to keep a brave face. Tappe took a moment to find out why.
It turned out the patient had some lingering concerns about the results of several bone biopsies. Uncertainty was weighing heavily on them.
Instead of dismissing those concerns, Tappe first acknowledged the weight of what the patient was feeling. She quickly realized that the patient still had questions following earlier, more clinical explanations of the biopsies, and she took some time to dig deeper into the results. She then relayed that information in a way the patient could understand, bridging the gap between medical terminology and everyday language.
“When they’re in the hospital, patients are often just anxious, in general. They don’t know many people, and all the faces are new. I try to check in as much as possible so my face becomes a familiar one, and I can start to build a rapport,” Tappe says.
Tappe says in cases like this patient, she tries to explain things to them the way she’d explain it to a friend.
“Building relationships with my patients makes what I do so much more fulfilling, and it reminds me of why I went into nursing in the first place,” says Tappe.
To build meaningful relationships, Tappe starts her shift by visiting each patient, introducing herself, and telling them how long she’ll be working that day. She says this simple check-in helps her patients start to get familiar with her, and she can assess the overall well-being of the patient at the same time.
“I chat with them a bit to figure out, ‘Is this patient very sick? Are they not wanting to be bothered? Where is their pain level?" says Tappe. “Then I have an understanding of how to approach my day and who may need or want a little extra support.”
For those that do, she finds the time to pull up a chair, sit at the bedside, and chat.
“I ask them to tell me how they’re feeling, or what’s going through their head,” Tappe says. “Then I try to reassure them or answer their questions. Sometimes people just want to talk, and being able to sit and listen without rushing is really what they need to help process their feelings.”
Tappe sees part of her role as helping patients understand what’s happening without overwhelming them, working to balance honesty with hope and reminding them that there can be more than one outcome to any scenario.
Her anxious patient not only experienced Tappe’s gentle approach but also recognized how special it was and nominated her for a DAISY Award, which she won last year. In the nomination, they explained what a difference it made for Tappe to not only share the facts, but to reassure them they weren’t navigating the uncertainty alone.
“Monica combined thoroughness with compassion — her willingness to go the extra mile demonstrated her dedication to patient care. Her presence and efforts helped me shift from fear of the unknown to a place of greater understanding and trust,” said the patient in the nomination. “In that vulnerable moment, Monica gave me both information and peace of mind, which was exactly what I needed to feel grounded in my recovery.”
For Tappe, the DAISY Award was both a reminder and a validation.
“It really was a full circle moment when I won the DAISY,” Tappe says. “It reminded me why I became a nurse – to be able to make a difference in someone’s life.”
