| Peter Murphy Lewis on Making the Invisible Visible
| Peter Murphy Lewis‘s video series People Worth Caring About is a veritable goldmine for those of us who care about care.The documentary producer spent more than ten years visiting and interviewing care professionals nationwide. The spinoff People Worth Caring About podcast captures the experiences and viewpoints of leaders in the field. Here, he discusses the project’s history and its special meaning for him.
Let’s talk about how your documentary series came to be.
I got recruited to work for an electronic healthcare records company in 2020, and I met a beautiful individual in Ohio who told me that the real work happens from certified nursing assistants [CNAs]. He challenged me to go become one. My CEO thought it was a brilliant idea, so I went and did that, and it changed my life forever. I realized that if we wanted to combat the negative stereotype of long-term care, improve staffing, have more qualified people who love our grandparents and who take care of us, we needed to tell the story from their eyes.
What did you discover about this workforce?
It’s always surprising because as a person who has been blessed to have lots of education—my grandfather used to say I was over-educated—we often think that people working in healthcare, especially post-acute care, that it’s not about skills. Well, most of us couldn’t do it for an eight-hour shift, let alone a double shift. So it is a special skill. And I often say, once you see that level of skill and the emotional load up close, you can’t unsee it. You cannot unsee it. They are no longer invisible and those people will mark you forever.
You’ve filmed 22 episodes featuring 66 caregivers. Who stands out?
Many of them have marked me forever. I’ll start with Jace Cooley, a young 22-year-old med-aid working at a hospice center in Nebraska. He was the first person I met the first day I started filming. I’d never been in a hospice. I met him and his dog Pickles. He had a strong relationship with a woman named Kim who was nonverbal and could only communicate by typing on her cell phone. She had more gratitude in one hour than I’ve probably had in a year of my life. And she probably had that gratitude before she met Jace. Jace accentuated it. Jace was gratitude squared. She couldn’t say it, but she said it more than anyone I’ve ever met with words because of Jace.
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What surprised you as you traveled to different facilities?
New Mexico was a cultural shock for me. I went to a skilled nursing facility where 50% of the residents speak Navajo and the caregivers speak Navajo to them. I worked with a beautiful rehab therapist from the Philippines who learned Navajo and speaks to her residents in Navajo. She calls them grandma and they call her love and daughter. Outside of Cleveland, I visited a primarily Black facility on Super Bowl Sunday. There was a gentleman whose stage name is Mississippi Jackson, who sang acapella and filled up this building with more joy than I might fill up at my home for my family. Just a place of contrast that many of us don’t think exists in long-term care.
You mentioned living in South America and the Five Languages of Love. How does that connect to caregiving?
When I moved to South America, I realized that I had developed probably two languages of love, but as a society, we were lacking significantly. I’d worked on acts of service and words of affirmation. But when I lived in South America with a lot of Latin Americans, I realized they are very strong at quality time and very strong at physical touch. And I realized that while that might be true across the board in the United States, as a society, we don’t develop that quite as much. Inside of long-term care, that is not the case. They are very strong in acts of service and very strong in touch and very strong in quality time.
Why do you think Americans struggle with aging and long-term care?
Our self-worth is so highly dependent upon productivity. Once we retire you at 65 or 75, as a society, it’s hard for us to understand why you still have worth. It’s much easier for us to blame and point fingers at these institutions instead of going and being a part of the solution.
What’s your advice for advocates and professionals in the aging space?
Stand up tall and be proud. I’ve done more than a hundred different jobs in my life from the television show, and the job that’s had the most impact on me was becoming a caregiver, becoming a CNA. You can make a difference. You might feel alone today, underappreciated, but we can make a difference. Send an episode of People Worth Caring About to a 15-year-old, an 18-year-old, or 21-year-old, and let them realize they can have a fulfilling job today where they’re going to have an impact on somebody’s life every single minute. You’re going to feel a lot less alone if you have people with lots of energy around you who are just desperate to find a fulfilling job like what you’ve had.
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