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CAPC Palliative Care Discussion Forum
Chaplaincy in Palliative Care Settings
Chaplain on the end of life.Author: kengokjohn
Date: Aug 5, 2008 5:29 am
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If the patient is near the end of life, I follow their lead. If they are open and engaging, I often ask about their hopes and dreams for their last days, ask about regrets and satisfactions, explore with them their faith journey, offer to contact their faith leader, pary or sing with them. I often just sit in silence to provide presence.
I also keep last vigils with families, dropping in for brief visits during the day and extending those when family needs are evident.
During long vigils, walks in the garden or just five minutes out of the room (in our palliative care office where we keep good chocolate!) give family members a chance to cry or speak openly about things they aren't saying in front of other family members. Being a calm presence and, sometimes, explaining physical processes to family, seems to foster a sense of peace in the room. Being an on-going faithful companion to those who want my presence seems to be the best gift of spirit. I think that's where our presence as chaplains is a symbol of something beyond ourselves...the presence of Love, faithful to the end.
Suzanne Hilton Smith
Martha Jefferson Hospital
Charlottesville VA
I agree about what was previously posted: calm, presence, walking with and so on. We have a Butterfly Cart which is put in the room of a patient who is on the path toward death. It has a refrigerator for the family to keep cool drinks or food, reading material and spiritual reading material (many faiths) and a cd player with a collection of music.
As a chaplain and rabbi I am called upon to officiate at many funerals and memorials. People have commented often "if only I had known that this person did_____ or enjoyed ____ or came from____" and so on. Now we make it a practise to fully interview patients long before their deaths, we even make cds of them. So that in the course of their care we know what they like, what they believe, what their favorites are and so on.
In this way I am not only a loving presence who can offer prayer and support and silence, I also know this person through their life story so that we are brothers and sisters not "the living" and the "near dying." We are one.
And after all is said and one, isn't unity what we are alll striving for somehow?
Rabbi Arthur Rosenberg, Chaplain
Motion Picture and Television Fund, Woodland Hills, Ca.
I agree about what was previously posted: calm, presence, walking with and so on. We have a Butterfly Cart which is put in the room of a patient who is on the path toward death. It has a refrigerator for the family to keep cool drinks or food, reading material and spiritual reading material (many faiths) and a cd player with a collection of music.
As a chaplain and rabbi I am called upon to officiate at many funerals and memorials. People have commented often "if only I had known that this person did_____ or enjoyed ____ or came from____" and so on. Now we make it a practise to fully interview patients long before their deaths, we even make dvds of them. So that in the course of their care we know what they like, what they believe, what their favorites are and so on.
In this way I am not only a loving presence who can offer prayer and support and silence, I also know this person through their life story so that we are brothers and sisters not "the living" and the "near dying." We are one.
And after all is said and one, isn't unity what we are alll striving for somehow?
Rabbi Arthur Rosenberg, Chaplain
Motion Picture and Television Fund, Woodland Hills, Ca.