Theory Doesn't Flinch. People Do.

Six weeks of this now. Textbooks, slide decks, quizzes, the whole classroom apparatus of learning how to take care of another human being. And here's the thing nobody tells you going in

None of it means a damn thing until you're standing in the room.

You watch the videos. Waking a resident, walking them to the toilet, showering them, easing a toothbrush into a mouth that isn't always cooperating. The teacher demos it and it looks like easy, smooth, obvious, almost boring. Fall support, bed bath, the works.

On screen or, when the teacher with 20+ years of experience does it, it's choreography.

In the room it's an actual person.

When we were tested what did we do? We ran the checklist. Step one, step two, step three... Like we were assembling Ikea furniture instead of caring for someone who has a name and a face and an opinion about what happens to their body.

We forgot to ask. To talk. That's the whole failure, right there. We forgot to look the resident in the eye and say, "What do you want to do next?" Not what's next on my "list". What do you want. We were so busy executing the tasks that we missed the person the task was supposed to be for.

They call it person-centred care. Turns out it's not a technique. It's a discipline... The discipline of asking questions and shutting up long enough to let the person decide.

In short, it's EVERYTHING.

Lesson learned the hard way, which is the only way it sticks.