Compassionate Caregiver treats patients 'like family'

Patients breathe easier when Cindy French is caring for them.

A nurse practitioner long drawn to the care of people with severe lung and neuromuscular disease, French was honored last night by the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center with its Compassionate Caregiver Award. More than 100 people were nominated for the award, which honors a Boston lawyer who wrote poignantly in a 1995 Globe magazine article about the difference compassion made to him as he was fighting lung cancer.

French coordinates critical care operation at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, sees patients in its Lung and Allergy Center, and is the assistant editor of the journal Chest. Working with Dr. Richard Irwin, she created a pulmonary rehabilitation program and fought to have its services covered by insurance. She also established a multidisciplinary ALS center to make it easier for patients to manage different appointments in one location.

“She’s amazing. There is nothing she wouldn’t do to make sure that our patients are taken care of in the best way,” Irwin said. “Cindy treats all of her patients just like they were her own family.”

Mary Skinner’s husband, Bob, was her patient for 20 years. He suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and died of cancer last year.

“She told me the day when he was diagnosed she would continue to be there for me throughout his journey,” Skinner said. “She was beyond wonderful.”

After he was in home hospice care, French and Irwin would come to the Skinners’ home.

“I can tell you it meant the world to him,” Skinner said. “And to me.”

French said she was deeply moved by reading Ken Schwartz’s story after she was contacted by the Schwartz Center about her nomination for its 10th caregiver award.

“I was crying. The story was so close to ours in the need to help folks find the strength and the optimism to keep going,” she said. “Compassion is the care we give by opening our hearts and letting our patients know we feel their pain and suffering and that we’re going to do the best to work with them and do something about it.”