I met Rick when I started to work at CAMH at the then Central Link Outpatient Clinic in 2001 and quickly learned what a tenderhearted and compassionate person he was. He was always ready to help out his colleagues and was the first person who took time to orient me to the running of the clinic. I also saw that his patients truly liked and respected him. He was always kind and caring and supportive in his approach with his patients. With his gentle humour with them he could convince them to choose the course that was optimal for them to maintain their health. He didn't hesitate to take on the care for those clients who were most marginalized and accepted them as they were, treating them with dignity and respect, His gentle persuasion and tenacity ,taking patients out of the clinic for a walk to talk not just about their illness but about their interests and plans while buying them a coffee, built trusting relatioships. He made clients and colleagues feel comfortable and at ease. He has been a great nurse, counsellor and mentor to many. I learned so much from him as I watched him work.
There was another side to Rick that endeared him to me but also made me and other staff at the clinic keep on our toes because he was also a prankster of the highest standard!
Rick pulled off numerous good natured pranks that would make me laugh at myself and the work world in general. I had run into pranksters in school and thought I had seen good ones but Rick is the best I have ever known!
If you received an email about some new development at work that seemed too good or sometimes too bad to be true, it often was, because prankster Rick had struck, making something look like it was coming from somewhere in the organisation that it actually had not. Staff, myself included, would get worked up anticipating this or that only for things to later never materialize because there had been some confusion or miscommunication somewhere and we learned that what we thought was happening, wasn't. The work of prankster Rick! He was able to figure out people's voicemail codes and alter voice messages received to confuse you. You had to be careful if you received a call from a "delivery person" with a delivery at the clinic door who couldn't get in. Numerous times I saw colleagues walking down the hall to the clinic door mumbling about a delivery person calling to get in but there being no one at the door, "We'll who was it ?someone would ask, the reply invariably was the same "I don't know, he had an accent".Rick had a good accent, in fact multiple ones, (a good Eastern European accent, a good British English accent, a good Chinese accent) that he could artully use. I went to the door looking for what I thought was likely a Polish delivery person, I never found him!
You could never prove Rick was behind a prank but occassionally he would pull off a prank that was so good, that caused so much confusion or quirky behaviours by his colleagues, that months later he would finally own up to the pranking when I pressed him about it because he wanted to enjoy it again in the recollection of it.
Once Rick got accused of a phone call prank that he did't do, because it wasn't a prank!, A phone call received by the receptionist from IT at the hospital, an Omar Omar, was calling. The receptionist believing the caller to be Rick, as she didn't think anyone would have the name Omar Omar,terminated the call . Then she called down the hall to Rick to cut out the prank phone calls. Rick came to reception protesting he had done nothing and when phone rang again and receptionist picked it up and it was Omar Omar calling again asking receptionist why she hung up as he had to arrange to come out to the clinic to deal with systems. After arranging this the call ended and receptionist and other staff laughed as such was the pranking situation that Rick was getting blamed for non-prank occurrences!
The pranking was the flip side of compassionate Rick. It was a release in a stressful work environment. Rick was always the first one to recongnise when people were truly getting too wound up and he was the first person to suggest a person take a break and he would offer to provide care for their patient for the few minutes they may need or want to decompress. He tried to make the work enviornment fun and relaxed and if things were too far gone for too many days and it needed a prank to create a relaxed environment to ease tension, Rick was the guy to do it.
Rick and I both left the clinic to work elsewhere in the organization around the same time. Rick remained in the community with the Shared Care Team and I went to inpatient care. From time to time we would meet again when one of his patients was admitted onto the ward I was working on. We would recall some of his more memorable pranks and laugh about them. I told him that I missed that most in the work I was now doing, no longer having the space at work to laugh like we had been able to at the clinic and not having him around each day to share laugher with.
I was blessed to have worked with such a remarkable person whose clinical work taught me so much and from and whose gift of laughter made work tolerable at times when it was tough. I have never worked with anyone like you before or since Rick, you are unique and you are the best. I will forever miss you dear friend.May God Bless your beautiful family your wife Jacqui whom you always spoke of lovingly and of how lucky you felt to be married to, in love with and loved by, and of your wonderful sons Ryan and Evan and the joy you expressed as you delighted in talking of their achievements,
My sincere condolences to you Jacqui, Ryan and Evan and to the Dirmeitis and Reade families may God bless you and keep you and provide you comfort.
Marlene Hammar
