Cathy Gillette RN, MSN, CRNP, ACHPN

By Erin Flynn Jay

Cathy Gillette was a critical care nurse for 22 years and had worked in a primary care practice for a decade. When she decided to transfer to hospice care, Hospice of the Sacred Heart in Wilkes Barre, PA, was a new non-profit hospice. Gillette decided to become an Advanced Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (Advanced CHPN) because she wanted to provide comfort, care, hope, and choice for patients while guiding them on their end-of-life journeys. “My heart felt that we should pay more attention and respect to the dying. For 22 years as an intensive care unit nurse (as an RN), I saw firsthand fear-filled, painful, and futile care.”

Now an Advanced Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse for 11 years (CHPN), Gillette originally decided to certify because it helped the organization where she works. “We were just building up. We have increased tenfold in the past few years; we serve nine counties in northeast PA. We felt it was important to be leaders in hospice and palliative care.” Certified nurses bring credibility and quality care to any healthcare institution.

Gillette said she prepared for the certification exam with a study guide and studied about two hours a night. “During the exam, there was a tornado and the power went out. We sat for about an hour, then we went back and had to start over again. Everything had been lost,” she laughed.

The best study tactic Gillette used to prepare for the exam was just being disciplined. “I studied from 9 to 11 every night; I put the kids to bed, sat down, and studied.”

There was nothing she wished she did differently to prepare for the CHPN exam. Gillette was well prepared.

Hospice of the Sacred Heart is now a large non-profit hospice that serves around 300 patients daily. “There is a ten-bed freestanding inpatient unit that is my primary responsibility. I do face-to-faces for Medicare recertification,” said Gillette. “Wherever the patient calls home, we go. I’ve been to a tent; during a patient’s last days, he wanted to go camping.”

Gillette remembers helping this middle-aged man who had terminal cancer. He wanted to spend his last days camping with his dog. Due to the heroic effort of a nurse colleague who knew how to camp, the hospice’s entire team stepped up to provide supplies, deliver food (dog and human), and give him his last wish. The camper stayed with his dog at a local campground until a few days before he died.

“Wherever and whatever their journey, our mission is to provide the best care,” she said. Hospice nurses go the distance not only to provide the palliative care their patients need but also do whatever it takes to improve their patients’ quality of life.

Gillette remembered another patient in her unit: A 21 year old with neurofibromatosis and end-stage disease who had been sick since she was six years old. She had minimal social interaction due to her illness. Nurses, social workers, volunteers, pastoral care, and the medical team all stepped up to do extra visits. A memorial fund provided a handicap-equipped computer and Gillette’s team threw her a birthday party a few days before her death. Gillette gave her flannel sheets and a comforter with penguins on them. Her nurse case manager brought her favorite food and flowers. “She had been writing a story about a healthy girl and all her adventures and we talked about it,” she said. “It was a pretty simple celebration as she was very ill and died soon after, a beautiful peaceful death.”

A typical day for Gillette, CHPN starts with in-patient rounds. In the inpatient visit, they do a morning report with the interdisciplinary team. “We talk about who was admitted, who was discharged, who passed away, who we think might be within the last seven days of their life,” she said. “I usually see the ten patients who are in the inpatient unit and write orders for their care.” (Gillette is also a nurse practitioner.)

After that, Gillette visits patients’ homes for recertification of hospice benefits, which is required by Medicare after the patient has completed six months in hospice.“I take calls evenings and nights; I am on call for the nurses on the road and inpatient unit.”

Gillette feels she helps her patients the most with symptom management—“getting the physical symptoms well controlled and then bringing in social work and counseling and helping these families cope with what is the worst time of their life.” She loves the organization she works for as well. An all-nursing staff, each patient is seen by an LPN or RN. She credits the phenomenal staff—she sees kindness, caring, and devotion to the work they do.

She is a Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner (CRNP). She is also an advanced certified hospice and palliative nurse (ACHPN), a specialty certification in her field of practice.