Fully Invested

Alicia Fisher has lived with significant abdominal pain for years. She’s visited doctor after doctor with no answers as to the cause. Her doctor’s visits would typically end with in another referral and a prescription to help her manage the pain.

During one particularly painful bout with the pain, Alicia drove 30 miles from Provo to Lone Peak Hospital in Draper, Utah. From the moment she walked through the ER doors, she could tell something was different.

“Jerry was my nurse. He was incredibly kind,” Alicia said. “I was really vulnerable because I was there alone. I was really uncomfortable and in a lot of pain, and he really made me feel that I mattered and that the outcome of my wellbeing mattered to him as well. And that meant a lot to me. I’ve had a lot of different nurses and he was just really invested in my wellbeing, I could feel it.”

After some initial blood work, the staff prepared her for a CT scan. From the phlebotomist, to the rad tech, to the attending physician, she felt like they — across the board — made her feel like she was a person and not just a patient.

“Dr. Fox had a very calm demeanor and was very competent,” Alicia said. “She gained my trust because she knew what she was talking about, and you could tell. She was both confident and gentle at the same time. I appreciated that she took the extra time to make sure I was ok and figure out what was going on.”

It was that thoroughness that perhaps impressed Fisher the most. She felt like the entire staff was committed to giving her some answers. She didn’t leave with all of the answers, but the Lone Peak staff was able to give her as thorough a diagnosis as she’s ever gotten about the root of the pain she’s experiencing — the official diagnosis was a swollen colon — and help her chart and facilitate next steps. The pain hasn’t completely subsided but she’s doing much better than she was the day she walked through the doors of Lone Peak Hospital.

As a full-time clinical social worker and a single mother of three, Alicia doesn’t necessarily have the time to drive 30 minutes and pass several other hospitals en-route to Lone Peak Hospital. Far from it. But she doesn’t bat an eye at it because of the experience she had.

“Because my experience was so positive I would drive the extra miles just to go to Lone Peak because of how I was treated there,” she said. “I felt really safe, there was no wait time, and I felt like I was treated with respect and dignity. I felt like I wasn’t judged. I felt like they were really invested in figuring out what was going on — versus just giving me pain medication to deal with the symptoms — and that they wanted to figure out what was really going on and how to really help me feel better.”