CLOSING SESSION SPEAKER

Change the things you can:
Life after trauma

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and realizing you no longer have your senses of hearing, sight, taste and smell.

Keynote speaker and best-selling author Marcus Engel took the stage during the Closing Session with his seeing-eye dog, Garrett, and shared exactly how he felt the day he woke up in a hospital to find himself without nearly all of his senses except for a feeling of “earth-shattering pain.” Engel’s entire life changed during his freshman year in college after the car in which he was riding was struck by a drunk driver — an accident that nearly killed him and left him permanently blind and needing more than 300 hours of reconstructive surgery. Eventually he regained all senses except for his eyesight.

As Engel told his captivating story, he intertwined his first-hand perspective as a trauma patient. He discussed ways that health care professionals made a difference during the “most vulnerable moment” in his life by treating him like a person and not just a patient and by holding his hand to let him know he wasn’t alone.

Engel urged the emergency nurses in attendance to focus on the positive in unexpected situations and to contact him when they experience compassion fatigue and burnout.

“One of the things I can do is to try to pay it forward to you and to the entire world of health care,” Engel said. “I want to hear your story. I want to know what I can do to help keep you in this profession.”

For more information on how you can contact Marcus Engel to share your story, please visit his website here.

Kendra Y. Mims