Q&A Part V: Bruce Kinder, project manager

Nobody is more familiar with the details of the move of University Medical Center services than Bruce Kinder – he’s been through every step of the planning as the project manager.

And now, as vice president of academic affairs, he’s preparing to be there to see those plans carried out April 16-18 as UMC’s Level 1 trauma, burn, pediatric and acute inpatient services move to the downtown Community Regional Medical Center.

Kinder, a registered nurse, started his career with Community as a burn nurse in 1984 at UMC (then-Valley Medical Center) after spending seven years as an entomologist.

“I got tired of beating cotton plants with a net,” Kinder joked about his career change.

In 1996, Kinder took a new position, focusing on the UMC move. And with the move just days away, Kinder has plenty to look back on and even more to look forward to:

How do you feel about this move?
I’m excited about it. That’s pretty cool when you take what we have here as physicians and staff and add this equipment. It’s going to be great. The idea that the safety net and trauma center have a new home gives it a pretty bright future. Most of the time when you hear about trauma centers, they’re not moving, they’re closing.

UMC has functioned as the safety net Level 1 trauma provider, but the economic model that has supported it is just not sustainable. And now moving it to the regional medical center and having all the things we couldn’t afford is going to provide it a great home and a stable future.

What are you most looking forward to about moving to the downtown Community Regional Medical Center?
Getting it done. It’s been 10 years of talking about it and planning and now it’s just, let’s get it done.

What worries you about the move?
Everything worries me. The real things I’m worried about are we’re moving patients. Usually when you’re moving patients, you’re moving them to surgery or to get them to a CT scanner. You’re trying to get them to definitive care. I want it to be as safe as possible. Any time you start moving a patient there are risks associated with that. I just want it to be as safe as we can make it. So I’m going to worry about all those little things.

We hear a lot about UMC. Tell us, what is so special about it?
This place, it’s never been about the building or equipment or any of that stuff. It’s about the people who work here – dedicated people who really work as a team. That’s the magic of UMC.

How will this UMC move impact what the people from UMC can do?
It’s going to allow us to take it to a different level, whereas before it’s been scraping by to get it done. We’re moving to the fastest CT scan on the planet. Before it was, “Are the elevators going to work?” We’re moving to pretty good elevators. We’ve invested in a new home.

What will be the toughest part of this transition?
At the end of the day, after we’ve gotten the patients out and everyone’s safely tucked into their beds at the regional medical center, all of us who have worked here for a long time will take the guard down a little bit and have our little bittersweet moment. It’s like leaving college or a hometown. There will never be another place like it.

If I’m a patient coming to this bigger than ever regional medical center, what can I expect?
You can expect world-class doctors, world-class health care providers and a great environment to receive care.

What does it truly mean to be an academic regional medical center?
It means that you have access 365 days a year, 24/7 access to specialists, to the trauma resources, to equipment and physicians who just aren’t out there in any of the other local hospitals.

We won’t just be a resource to the community, we’ll be a resource to every other hospital out there. We’ll be able to recruit and retain world-class physicians. That just means great things for people of the Valley we provide care for. It will be a destination site. I don’t think folks have that in their mind right now, but very soon. If I have a need, I’m going to want to go to the academic regional medical center.

How important does Community Regional now become to the Valley?
It is probably going to be the most dynamic health care provider and system in the region. The partnership of Community Medical Centers with UCSF and our private physicians, that’s going to be the real deal.

Give me your best UMC story.
We had a patient on a ventilator, and she had very extensive medical problems, so it wasn’t likely she was going to leave the hospital. But she was very awake. You always have a tough situation trying to communicate with a patient who’s on a ventilator, because they can’t speak to you. And sometimes she’d write notes, but she’d tremor and she couldn’t write sometimes.

It was this game of 20 questions you’d always have to go through to sort out, “OK what is it you’re trying to tell me? What do you need? Is it food, is it pain?” You’re going down the list. And it’s really difficult because she was very awake. And we worked seven on, seven off. I would have her for seven days, and after a couple days you have it down and pretty much know what she wants.

So the nurse who takes care of her for the next seven days, a great competent nurse, but the 20 questions thing just wasn’t her strength. I did my seven days on and I’m in there working because they called me in to work for someone else, so I’m watching this whole little drama play out. And I can tell the patient is getting more and more frustrated because her message just isn’t coming across.

So I stop and the patient tells me the story, so we’re going, “OK listen, it’s going be OK and we’re going to get through this and sort out what it is you need.” And she’s pointing at the nurse, like she’s really upset. So the nurse leaves for a little while, and we have lots of kids in the burn center, so I happen to find a squirt gun. So I fill the squirt gun with water and the patient’s eyes get big, and she gets this big grin.

She takes it right away from me, hides it under the sheet and I leave. I’m sitting outside the desk and can see the window, and in comes the nurse. And the patient reaches up, grabs her by the blouse, pulls out the squirt gun and unloads on her. And I thought it was the greatest moment in patient care of my career. Then she starts laughing. It was just a hilariously funny moment. This patient, not only did we address her medical needs, but we managed to address her psycho-social needs and alleviate some frustration. And that nurse never forgave me (laughing).

This story was reported by Eddie Hughes. He can be reached at eddieh@communitymedical.org.

Friday, April 13, 2007