COOS BAY — While some seek the limelight and bask in the adoration of fans, others would prefer to stay firmly out of the spotlight.

Anne Hudson, R.N., had four goals for her life — becoming a wife, a mother, a hospital nurse and “avoiding public speaking at all costs.” While she managed to achieve the first three, she botched the last.

Over the past five years Hudson has become a nationally renowned advocate for nurses and has spoken at dozens of conferences on preventable injuries sustained by health-care workers while lifting immobile patients. She now regularly speaks to crowds that range from 50 to 700, and, although it’s something she had hoped to avoid, her philosophy is “the bigger the audience, the better.”

The loss of a dream

It all started with a pain in her back.

After studying for several years in the nursing program at Southwestern Oregon Community College, Hudson completed her degree at Oregon Health & Science University and accepted a position as a hospital nurse. She cared for and, at times, lifted, immobile patients.

“I had a wonderful career in the hospital,” Hudson said with a dreamy expression on her face. “I had achieved a dream by becoming a hospital nurse.”

Looking at Hudson, a slim woman with a small frame and delicate hands, it’s hard to believe she could lift a man weighing 150 pounds or more. But after five minutes of conversation and a few quick, kind smiles, it’s clear there’s steel underneath her soft-spoken, North Carolina accent.

While working at the hospital, Hudson lifted patients with  the “safe” patient handling methods she’d been taught in school, but she eventually developed pain through her lower back from a compound injury —  due to lifting adult patients.

The injury led to surgery, but even after Hudson recovered, she still was unable to return to work — because she could no longer lift patients.

“I couldn’t believe (hospitals) would require a nursing degree for a job that could break your back and possibly put you out of your nursing career,” she said. “I thought, ‘What are we doing taking all these college classes if our jobs will depend on our backs?’”

Going public

Hudson accepted a position with the Coos County Public Health department and began doing her own research on injured health-care workers.

“My injury, in fact, created a way for me to expand my nursing career into public health,” Hudson said with a smile. “I consider myself very fortunate to be working as a nurse. Many nurses with spinal injuries never work as nurses again.” 

She founded a chapter of the Work Injured Nurses Group,  and began writing articles. Before long, she was traveling to Washington, D.C., and Australia on her vacation time. In June she also delivered the keynote address at Duke University during the Minimal Manual Lifting Environment conference.

No matter the event, Hudson emphasized the need to change industry standards to keep well-educated and skilled employees from suffering preventable injuries.

“This, I feel, is a pathetic loss of a brain trust in America,” Hudson said. “Many thousands of nurses have lost their careers and wasted their education on preventable injuries from lifting people. People bending forward to lift other people breaks all known safety rules — there simply is no safe, manual patient lifting.”

Hudson’s mission is to change the standard procedures for patient handling throughout the nation,  not just for workers, but patient safety, too. While being lifted by nurses, patients can be dropped, develop shoulder injuries, abrasions or burns.

But despite the promising changes on the horizon, Hudson said she isn’t convinced her work has made a difference (see sidebar).

“My efforts feel small. The need is so great and I can do so little,” she said, twining her nut-brown hair around her fingers. 

Setting the trend

Bay Area Hospital in Coos Bay is a trendsetting hospital in  changing policies on patient handling. CEO Dan Smith said he has seen a marked decrease in the number of injured workers at the facility since instituting the new requirements.

“We have been working to keep our employees and our patients safe,” Smith said. “One of the ways to do that is by investing in staff training and lift equipment.”

The hospital has been proactive in working with state and regional nursing associations to provide equipment and support for patient handling. In addition to lift machinery and training, Bay Area Hospital instituted a “lift team” to come in and assist  nurses in moving patients.

“We’ve tried to be pretty innovative in our approach,” Smith said.

Hudson applauds Bay Area Hospital’s new methods, but said it isn’t enough.

“We need legislation in every state and in the nation to catch up with other countries, and to stop disabling health-care workers with preventable injuries,” she said.

Legislative efforts on patient handling continue at the national and statewide levels through a variety of professional associations and WINGUSA. Meanwhile, Hudson said she hopes that by spreading the word, she can help to change  the health-care culture from injury acceptance to injury prevention — one day at a time.