What is the proper protocol when I am visiting a church member in the hospital and a doctor or nurse comes in to do a procedure or talk to the person I am visiting?
It’s polite to offer to leave out of respect for the patient’s privacy and dignity. Certainly, if they request for you to stay, do so as long as you’re comfortable. Often if the medical team is giving results or information, they will confirm with the patient that it is OK to speak in front of anyone else at bedside out of respect for the patient and compliance with privacy laws. It is important that you confirm with patient (or patient’s family, if the patient is unable to communicate) what about their condition and/or hospitalization they would like to be shared with the congregation before you share anything. You can also ask about preferences: whether he or she would like visitors, visitations times and other needs that the church could offer to help with — such as meals, childcare and transportation. The primary thing to remember is to give the patient as much autonomy and dignity as possible.
Any “best practices” for hospital visits? Things you’ve seen pastors do or say that made you cringe?
Yes! Always utilize the hospital chaplains when possible, as they are your allies and liaisons when it comes to hospital policies and protocols. I recently had a patient in intensive care (ICU) whose family’s pastors came to the hospital per family request to baptize the patient. I knew their faith tradition typically baptized by full immersion, so I met the pastors in the ICU to offer appropriate ways to baptize in the ICU, as full immersion was not an option for safety reasons. The family’s pastors informed me that they wouldn’t do an alternative form of baptism and engaged in a theological debate with me at the nurse’s station. Theological debates have their place and baptisms take many forms, but please don’t argue with clinical clergy when it comes to whether or not you may potentially drown a critically ill patient. If baptism is indeed “an outward sign of an inward seal,” then let’s all agree to trust that the Trinity can handle whatever form a baptism may take. The same goes for communion. Often there are creative and appropriate ways to share communion in clinical settings, so use the hospital chaplains as resources for meaningful suggestions and alternatives. There is much about sacraments and rituals in clinical settings that can be beautifully unorthodox and sacredly sterile, and clinical clergy are happy to assist congregational faith leaders in them.
What is a typical day like for a hospital chaplain?
Well, like most ministries, there isn’t one. For example, yesterday I was paged out of a meeting because one of my teenage patients had a cancer relapse and wanted to talk to me. Then I spilled sterile water for a baptism in my coffee. I ate graham crackers from the emergency department while returning emails before debriefing a traumatic death with a staff member. Later, I couldn’t find my cell phone because I forgot that I had given it to a nurse when I entered an isolation room. I charted a bit and called a physician back about a patient’s funeral arrangements. When I changed my pager to “out; call my office” and walked out of the building, I ran into the mom of a previous patient who was visiting a family friend whose child had just undergone emergency surgery.
It was a good day, and not all days are good around here. I rarely know what my day will hold, but I know there is always the potential to meet someone on the worst day of her life. And when I do, I try my best to bring authenticity and compassion to her vulnerability. Because being trusted with someone’s sick child and worst nightmare isn’t something I ever take for granted. As the Confession of 1967 states so honestly, “Life is a gift to be received with gratitude and a task to be pursued with courage.” This is embodied in many forms, but few know what it means to believe it deep within one’s bones like parents of sick children or those who are grieving.
How do you recharge spiritually and physically to keep from being depleted by all the demands?
I pay attention to how much energy I have and what bothers me on any given day. The days I’m more bothered by someone who didn’t return my email than by why kids get cancer, it’s time for a day off. Staff support is a huge component of my role as clinical clergy, so I pay a therapist to get my own support since I provide daily support to patients, families and staff. I also have colleagues whom I debrief with and trust to process hard cases and to call me out when I don’t seem myself. Hospital staff witness horrible things nobody should ever see, and we witness beauty we could never articulate to others, so it’s vital to support each other in the most empathetic ways.
I also have the great gift of friends and colleagues with healthy children, and at least once a week I ask one of them to text me a photo/video of their healthy kid, invite myself to dinner or schedule a FaceTime date. I’ve yet to have someone decline my request for, “Need a healthy kid picture STAT!”
I think the most important component of spiritual recharge is staying honest in difficult situations. There are many days that I proclaim “in life and in death we belong to God,” even while answering a parent’s “What kind of God wouldn’t intervene to save my child?” with “I don’t know.” Faith and spirituality are fluid. The day I no longer wrestle with why some kids recover and some do not — or am not angry about a trauma that could have been prevented — then I will be concerned.
ASHLEY-ANNE MASTERS is the interim manager for spiritual care and the Heartlight program at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She is co-author of “Bless Her Heart: Life As A Young Clergywoman,” author of “Holding Hope: Grieving Pregnancy Loss During Advent” and contributor to “Talking Taboo: American Christian Women Get Frank About Faith.” She blogs at revaam.org.
