Volunteer Cam’s lived experience strengthens patient connections
Cam Briscoe is a vivacious and adored specialist volunteer on the Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) ward at the State Rehabilitation Service based at Fiona Stanley Hospital.
Reflecting this year’s theme for National Volunteers Week ‘Something for Everyone,’ emphasising there’s a unique place for everyone in the world of volunteering, Cam himself has an acquired brain injury and was a patient in the ABI ward.
In August 2020, Cam woke up in hospital with no memory of how he got there.
“No one can tell me how my injuries happened, when, or why,” he said.
The first thing he remembers after the incident is being wheeled on a gurney and looking up at the hospital lights, something he described as “the train ride experience.”
Cam’s doctors told him he had suffered a traumatic brain injury resulting in cognitive and functional impairment.
“I basically had gone back to being a child,” he said. “I had to learn to walk, communicate and regulate my emotions.”
Despite living with coordination loss, memory-loss, fatigue and other long-term impacts, Cam said he’s grateful that he can take care of his basic needs.
“Some people with traumatic brain injury aren’t so lucky,” he said.
During his stay at the ABI ward, Cam said despite the empathetic care of the clinical staff he struggled with loneliness, especially on weekends.
“I went from working and having a social life to a hospital room,” he said. “That was one of the hardest things to come to terms with.”
When he was discharged Cam’s doctor asked him if he would be interested in volunteering on the ward, and he jumped at the opportunity.
“It made me feel like I was needed again, like I had a purpose,” he said.
Cam’s experience with the challenges of traumatic brain injury allowed him to give tailored care to patients, and he was soon appointed as a specialist volunteer. He takes a person-centred approach and aims to build trusting relationships with patients through open conversation.
Cam highlighted that while doctors and nurses have a vital role, people with an acquired brain injury need someone who can understand and relate to their experience.
“That’s where specialist volunteers come in,” he said. “I can sit down with them and say, ‘I know mate, I get it.’”
When he’s not talking to patients or reading them the newspaper, Cam holds arts and craft sessions as a form of diversional therapy and helps in hosting monthly sausage sizzles for the ward community, including patients and their families, volunteers, and staff.
He is particularly known around Fiona Stanley Hospital for his collection of bright, colourful shirts. Cam said they not only bring brightness to the ward but help start conversations with patients who are having a hard time warming to staff.
Cam was recognised for his dedication to the ABI ward when he won Volunteer of the Year at the recent 2023 SMHS Excellence Awards. In his acceptance speech, he said he finds fulfilment and joy in giving back to the ward that treated him with “so much love, empathy and support.”
When asked what he has learned from his journey that he wants to inspire in others, Cam said “Remember that the glass is always half full, never half empty.”
