The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home

July 2022

Dr. Sheri Bergeron baking with med students.

Our story begins with Dr. Sheri Bergeron, one of our dedicated Hospice physicians, and our Hospice Medical Director.

In addition to seeing patients and supporting our team, Dr. Bergeron also teaches and mentors Medical Residents completing their placements at our Hospice. Drawing on her own Residency experience years ago, as well as her passion for her current work, she wanted to find ways to inspire these Residents. And even more importantly, she wanted to immerse them in what we like to call The Hospice Way.

The Hospice Way is found in so many things we do, especially in a newly formed tradition – “Baking With Dr. Bergeron.”

Dr. Bergeron explains, “It all started when one of our nursing staff came across a box of cake mix in the Hospice kitchen. It was during a particularly tough week early on in the pandemic, and we decided that a cake would help lift the morale of everyone. So much had changed because of COVID, and frankly we were all a bit lonely. We missed the smiles and busy-ness of our volunteers and our usual large number of visitors – our patients, families, volunteers and staff all needed a little boost.”

“The team organized us, making sure that everyone took part in the baking, and that box of ordinary yellow cake mix kicked off a new tradition.”

From then on, Dr. Sheri would recruit each Family Medicine Doctor to take part in baking at least once during their rotation at Hospice.

Often the team makes cupcakes and cakes from a box mix, but as the tradition has continued, some residents began to bring in their own recipes in to share. “One of our Residents made a tea-cake from an old family recipe that was amazing!” Dr. Sheri remembers.

“That being said, we sometimes have a bit of a ‘mixed bag’ of results,” she laughs, explaining that some of the Medical Residents were “definitely not bakers,” but it was fun for everyone, no matter what came out of the oven.

The patients, family members, volunteers and staff have been grateful recipients of the bounty coming from these baking adventures. This tradition has been a great way to integrate Medical Residents into our team, have them meet and work with our amazing Kitchen Volunteers, and better understand The Hospice Way.

“Baking With Dr. Bergeron” has become something of an event in the Hospice kitchen, “This is such a great way to create memories for all of us, and provide a tasty treat for our patients and families.”