When there is a crisis afoot, large or small, I have been trained as a Girl Scout, Lutheran and thoughtful person in general, to ask myself, “What can I do to help?” Indeed, crises do present us with the opportunity to pull together and do whatever we can to prevent a precarious situation from becoming worse.

Such was my motivation last week as I experimented, without administrative approval, in offering a gowning option to the patients who came to our department for mammography. Going au naturelle or wearing their own button-up shirt, if they wore one, was only offered as an option to the hospital gown that I knew many feel is unnecessary in the privacy of the mammography suite.

Even so, every desire for modesty and warmth is honored and important to me. Not using a gown, I explained, would save the hospital a quarter! Most of my patients that week seemed rather gleeful to participate in this small act of conservation, and one of my ladies early on even thanked me!

Unfortunately, this encouraged me. I was to go on offering the offending option all week, feeling like we were all making a small difference together.

Clearly, I was wrong to think that everyone would feel this way.

Now it turns out that I have created a huge mess (“Sound Off,” News-Times, Sept. 6). I have hurt the hospital I love and was trying to help. I have hurt the people in charge of me who have to deal with the fall-out of my ill-formed ideas. I have experienced the humiliation of being publicly misunderstood and misrepresented. All because I asked myself, “How can I help?”

I know now that I should look for answers that are personal to myself, and that it is not appropriate to expect participation from our patients in this way.

Please be assured that gowns will be offered to all who come in the future, as they always have been. With no strings attached! (no pun intended!)

With so much pride in our beautiful, correctly prioritized hospital, and with so much love for you, my community, I am:

Kristine Nerison Collins

Whidbey General Hospital mammographer