Fraser Health palliative care nurse Stacy Polmateer was drawn to end-of-life care early in her career.
Polmateer had patients that she would take care of into their dying process and noticed that there was something that sparked her curiosity.
She became passionate about caring for palliative care patients and working with their families. The conversations with patients and family were difficult but worthwhile.
“The thing that I really like about palliative medicine is that we can eventually come to a place where we all know what direction this is heading in,” Polmateer said. “That opens up a lot of really interesting spaces to have emotional, honest conversations with people and to talk about things that you don’t normally get to talk about often as a nurse.”
Polmateer says those conversations and the pure humanity she sees in patients are what she loves about palliative care.
“We get this incredible range of what we get to do when we’re starting to talk about what it means to live and what it means to die and the whole range of everything in between,” she said. “We often think we’re seeing people at their worst when we’re actually seeing them at their very best because they are being brave, courageous and making difficult decisions.”
Despite her love for the work, it also has its downsides.
“Some days I feel more of a challenge than I feel the reward and some days, I feel like I never want to be a nurse again,” she said.
Polmateer says the greatest challenge is how under-resourced the healthcare system is and how much nurses are burned out.
“There’s many other challenges that are inherent with this work but that’s just par for the course and those are the challenges that I’m happy and willing to embrace,” she said. “The challenges that are hardest are the ones that feel powerless and where I feel like I have no control.”
Polmateer was motivated to get into health care after travelling around the world in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. She loved meeting people but discovered that she couldn’t really experience other cultures from her backpack.
”I actually went into nursing with a goal of eventually working with international aid,” she said.
Before she started with Fraser Health in April of 2019, Polmateer worked in Scotland, New Zealand and other locations throughout B.C.
She started out in respiratory medicine and eventually went on to work on different medical floors on a float team.
“I got to see a full range of the medical experience,” Polmateer said. “I would see differences between how different medical systems work and certainly how cultures in different areas of medicine are different. It’s interesting how the work sort of dictates the culture.”
Polmateer continues to travel, but doesn’t expect to pursue international aid work until she retires.
@dillon_white
dillon.white@missioncityrecord.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.