Marquette General Hospital is being honored by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson for its recent organ donation efforts. On Thursday, April 17, MGH will be presented with the 2014 Organ & Tissue Donation “Shining Star” Award. The brief ceremony will take place at 1 p.m.
The award honors exceptional dedication, outstanding support, novel partnerships and/or extraordinary efforts in the area of organ and tissue donor awareness. MGH is receiving the award for the compassionate care given to patient Sanaz Nezami and for making organ and tissue donation a possibility after a tragic event.
The story of Sanaz Nezami’s gift of life after her tragic death was first published in December. Since that time, media outlets from the Arab Emirates to Australia, from England to Canada and all across the United States have shared Sanaz’s story. The public has been deeply moved by Sanaz’s story as well as the care and compassion shown Sanaz and her family by MGH staff.
“This award is a tribute to our nursing staff that cared for Sanaz in her last moments of life,” said Dagmar Raica, DNP, chief nursing officer at MGH. “Their dedication and compassion for one individual is a testament to our entire staff who work tirelessly to provide top quality care for all of our patients each and every day,”
Sanaz’s, a native of Iran, was working toward a doctorate degree in environmental engineering from Michigan Tech in Houghton. She suffered a traumatic brain injury in December. After arriving at MGH, no one knew how to contact her family, so MGH staff ran her name through Google. Suddenly, the stranger who couldn’t speak for herself came alive through a resume posted online.
After about 24 hours, the hospital reached relatives in Iran. Immediate travel to the U.S. was impractical due to visa requirements.
Cherlynn Erickson, one of the RNs in the ICU, had the idea of coordinating a video chat with the family, allowing them to see Sanaz, to witness the care she was receiving and, eventually, to say their goodbyes. It quickly became apparent to the nurses how close-knit and loving the Nezami family was.
As the nurses were going about their duties, tending to Sanaz, the family began making requests that Erickson and RNs Alycia Davidson and Kim Grutt, do compassionate things like stroke Sanaz’s hair, or kiss her forehead. The nurses became an extension of the family, a proxy for blood relatives half a world away.
“That’s the special thing about the group of people that we have here, is that they just do that naturally,” said Gail Brandly, organ donation liaison at MGH. “Everyone was very compelled to be there for her. We felt that she was this tiny little innocent person that had no one there, so we were just going to be that family.”
“The two days I had her, we would set up the camera by the bedside, and it would be on for three or four hours, and they would pray and cry and talk to her in Farsi and talk to her in English, and there were maybe six or seven people who were rotating out in front of the computer,” Davidson said.
This technology allowed her family to watch her final hours and build an emotional bond with nurses whose compassion for a stranger from an unfamiliar culture gave great comfort to shocked, grieving relatives a world away.
“We wanted God to perform a miracle and bring Sanaz back to life,” her sister, Sara Nezami, said in a phone interview from Tehran. “But this is a miracle. Sanaz gave her life in order to give life.”
A nurse who took care of Sanaz said the young woman’s brief stay was “eye-opening” for staff at Marquette General Hospital.
“The family was willing to trust us to know she wasn’t coming back,” Kim Grutt said.
Sanaz died on Dec. 12, but her critical organs — heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, pancreas and small intestine — could be used by others. With the family’s consent, they were removed and transplanted to seven people in five states.
A Muslim doctor at the Marquette Family Medicine Residency Program performed the Islamic ritual of washing and shrouding Sanaz’s body and the hospital chaplain read Muslim prayers over her when she was buried at Park Cemetery. In keeping with her faith, the head of the casket was laid facing the Islamic holy site Mecca. A second memorial service was recently held for Sanaz in Dearborn.
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