Bernsen Rehabilitation Center is part of the Saint John’s Health System in Tulsa. It is also one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen.

What they do is take people who have had injuries, surgeries, strokes, heart attacks, broken bones and help them function in the community again.

The patients are the hardest working group of people I’ve ever seen. They are learning how to be independent. Physical Therapists and their assistants (PT’s and PTA’s in the lingo) teach their clients how to use a wheel chair, or how to walk with a walker, or just plain walk. They have their charges exercise to build up their strength. The work ethic is alive and well at Bernsen.

Occupational Therapists and their assistants (OT’s and OTA’s) teach how to dress and bathe themselves. They have kitchens set up to teach their charges how to cook safely while using a walker or other aids, load the dishwasher, and do the myriad things it takes to live independently in this world.

Recreational Therapists have the patients “play” games that demand the use of memory and recall and other skills.

There is a Social Worker that helps smooth the transition from the facility back to real life.

Every patient has an individual program just for them, overseen by a doctor. They work from dawn to dusk and they are exhausted at the end of the day. Its an inpatient facility so they take their meals together and get to learn about each other. During the day they cheerlead for each other, “Good going there, Mary! Look at you.”

They staff really goes above and beyond to make the patients comfortable. They are also very family friendly. Need a knife to cut a cake for an impromptu birthday party? They’ll get it, they’ll also ask if you have everything you need. Not a whole lot of rules here. Families are encouraged to eat meals with patients, or bring their own meals. You can check the patients out for a little while and go sit outside in the parklike setting the facility sits on.

Just before graduation, the family has a training session where we learn how to get the patient in and out of a car, how to go up and down steps, things to look out for, and items we can get to make life a little easier. Then a group of patients, families, and staff load up and go to lunch as part of the training. Finally a graduation tshirt from the OT department.

In the dining room there is a small document displayed on the wall. It is a notice that Pope John Paul II gave a Papal Blessing to The Bernsen Rehabilitation Center. I’m not sure exactly what that means in the Catholic Faith but to me it is an acknowledgement that the Staff and Patients at the Center are doing God’s Work, making people well again.