Chaplain on Demand!
What Non-Pastoral Care Colleagues
Want & Believe They Need
Robert Charles Powell, MD, PhD
When is the last time you, the chaplain, asked your non-chaplain colleagues when they most wanted –
or believed they needed –
a chaplain on their unit?
Recently a clinical pastoral chaplain friend and I stumbled into a situation where asking what I like to call “the right stupid question” provoked some startling answers. We asked the nurse/ managers in a number of intensive care areas at one medical center the following question:
“If you had $500,000 to spend on pastoral care and counseling services –
and you did not have to answer to anyone about your decision –
when would you like to have your ‘own personal chaplain’ on the premises?”
First let me provide some minor details about the medical center. This tertiary care facility – built around a clustering of 8 intensive care programs – functions as the regional referral and teaching center for a 6-campus system. The 70,000 emergency room visits, 20,000 admissions, and 69,000 pastoral care contacts per year keep 440 out of 560 beds full and 8 certified chaplains plus chaplain trainees busy.
More formal research by trainees of the medical center’s pastoral care department, two years earlier, produced objective information that more chaplaincy coverage was needed on weekend afternoons as well as on Mondays and especially on Tuesdays. What distinguishes the informal inquiry reported in this short essay is that staff members of NON-pastoral-care departments were asked to produce – on the spot – subjective information about their wants and perceived needs.
At the first intensive care area where staff members were queried, specifically and individually, about their professional perceptions of chaplaincy coverage needs, one informant wanted more chaplains available from 7 pm to 3 am, while another wanted more chaplains available from 2 pm to 2 am. Both informants began their comments by noting that no one before had ever asked their opinion. The spontaneously specific nature of their requests startled us – but this phenomenon repeated itself as we wandered around to other units.
At the second intensive care area visited, an informant noted that expanding the availability of pastoral care staff around 2 am would help considerably. At the third intensive care area visited, one informant wanted more chaplains available between 7 pm and 7 am– perhaps including for group work nearby– when family members are staying for hours and hours in the waiting room, while another informant wanted more chaplains available between 3 pm and 3 am– perhaps including a “midnight lunch with the chaplain”– again as a means of helping to “take care” of those family members who are essentially living in the waiting room. Other intensive care areas had requests more specific – for example, around the times when their patients tended to be removed from life-support.
Glancing over this ad hoc unscientific sample, the hours from 7 pm to 3 am stand out as the period when non-pastoral care clinical staff most wanted to have their “own personal chaplain” available. All intensive care areas were able to use the regular chaplaincy staff available in the medical center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When given the chance to fantasize about having total control over chaplaincy services in their intensive care area, however, the nurse/ managers in this busy medical center wanted and perceived they needed extra chaplaincy services in the hours around midnight.
So, when was the last time you, the chaplain, asked your non-chaplain colleagues when they most wanted – or believed they needed – a chaplain around? It would be easy to ignore this essay as relating only to large medical center situations – but the fact is that this question probably applies to all settings where clinical pastoral chaplains work.
As the saying goes,
“You can't always
get what you want,
but if you try sometimes, well,
you just might find you
get what you need”
Who is the pastoral care department to serve? The chaplains and the chaplain trainees? Or the patients, their families, and the non-pastoral care staff?
Endnote:
The song lyric at the very end of this article is from “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” lyrics by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards of “The Rolling Stones”. Recording released December 1969.
_________________
Robert Charles Powell, MD, PhD is the leading historian of the clinical pastoral movement. Many of his published writings are posted on the Pastoral Report. Readers can use the PR's search engine found on the left side-bar to locate his articles. As a practicing psychiatrist, his writings reflect his daily investment in his clinical practice of providing psychotherapy and care to his patients. Contact Dr. Powell by clicking here.