When Santa Claus Provides Transcranial Doppler Services at Your Hospital

At the hospital leadership level, patient care is often spoken of in terms of improving outcomes, fostering innovation, reducing errors, and shoring up staffing. But the day-to-day experiences of patients — who are scared, sick, and unsure — comes down to the expertise and comforting beside manner of your staff.

This can often become secondary when you’re working to ensure that you have enough staff, or enough specialized staff, to provide a range of critical services. You get support from staffing agencies and vendors, hoping that your budget will stay balanced and that your outcomes will stay the same or improve. But, when those providers go the extra mile, it makes a world of difference to the patients you serve.

In December 2022, one of our SpecialtyCare team members was able to delight patients and staff at a Florida hospital in a unique way. Tom McGee, CNIM, is a clinical manager on our Phoenix IONM team who had been told by several nurses and others that his beard made him look like Santa Claus, and they gave him a Santa hat. He considered it a compliment and decided to let his beard grow so that he could be a Santa in his hometown of Tucson, Arizona.

When he traveled to Clearwater, Florida, for an assignment in December, he decided to take his Santa hat to wear as he trained staff at the hospital on how to provide transcranial doppler (TCD) services. It resulted in a lot of fun and smiles as Santa made his rounds.

“I wore the hat every day through Christmas…The patients (and their families) would say, ‘Santa is coming to do my TCD!’” says Tom.

He also played the part of Santa for the kids. “In the community, there were a number of young children who would call out ‘Santa!’ so I would talk with them for a few moments, get their names, and wish them a very Merry Christmas. Also… folks would ask to have their picture taken with me…I ordered a Santa suit and wore it around the hospital on Friday, December 23.”

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It’s easy to prioritize skills and credentials when you’re seeking staff and service providers who can offer great patient care. Those are deeply important — but there’s no substitute for quality of character. At SpecialtyCare, we emphasize that we have awesome people on our teams. Tom provided an extra dose of merriment and morale to patients and staff in December, and we’re proud to have him and so many other hardworking, passionate professionals partnering with us to provide truly excellent patient care.

Looking for Awesome People to Support Your Hospital?

If you’re looking for awesome people to provide specialized services and high quality patient care, contact us today. We’re the largest provider of perfusion and IONM services for a reason. We focus on making surgery safer, which means we can also provide ECMO services and training, SPD consulting, EEG and other neurodiagnostic services, autotransfusion, minimally invasive surgical support, and surgical assist. Contact us today to learn how we can meet your hospital’s needs and help give your patients the excellent care they deserve.