When in Rome....

When in Rome…

            My last blog discussed the process of securing a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) position. I have now completed seven weeks of my ten week CPE unit, so I believe it is a good time for a status report.

            My title at Sibley Memorial Hospital is “Chaplain Intern.”  I know this because my official Sibley name tag says so. I typically introduce myself as “an intern with the Chaplain’s office.” It seems that either the patients and family don’t pick up on the name tag or the introduction, or they are diplomatic in their comments, because only a few have remarked that I must be in the midst of a “second career.”

  CPE has two components to it. 75% of the time is devoted to visits with patients and family.  The other 25% is spent in sessions with my supervisor and peers. There are four other seminary students in the Sibley CPE. One is my classmate who was a good friend before CPE started. Two are Brothers with Catholic monasteries and in training to become ordained. One brother is part of a Franciscan Order and the other is in the Carmelite Order. The remaining peer is concluding her studies at Wesley Seminary and will be ordained by the Methodist Church next spring.

 

At the beginning of the CPE, we split up various units of the hospital for routine coverage. I cover the ICU, Same Day Surgery, a wing of the skilled care rehab unit and the Memory Care Unit. I wanted a broad range of experiences—and I got it. My patients run from the teenager in the hospital only a few hours undergoing a minor procedure to patients who are spending their last years at the hospital with varying degrees of dementia. I have patients who know they will be going home in good health and with many productive years in the future and I have patients who are actively dying. While a majority of my patients identify with a Christian tradition, I see patients from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other faith traditions as well as agnostics and atheists. Significantly, the chaplain’s role is to provide emotional support as well as spiritual support, so we seek meaningful encounters with patients of any faith tradition or even of no faith tradition.

Most of the patient visits are “cold calls” in the sense that I am meeting the patient for the first time armed only with some very basic information that can be gleaned from the patient’s chart. Somewhat to my surprise, very few patients decline my offer to spend some time with them. I’ve encountered no one openly hostile to my knock on the door, but there have been a few who made it clear they have no desire to speak to a chaplain.

The visits run in length from about four minutes to over an hour. The visits in Same Day Surgery are typically relatively brief because they are in a holding room waiting to be transported to the operating room. Otherwise, as I enter a room, there is no way to predict whether a visit will be long or short. There is also no way to predict the direction a conversation will take. These discussions sometimes include only a passing reference to faith (until the end) and sometimes focus on beliefs and questions of theology.[1] I always end a visit with an offer to pray for the patient and/or family. Somewhat to my amazement (with respect to the patients who have agreed to speak to me) virtually every patient immediately accepts the offer to pray with them. I am confident that this does not speak to my pastoral skills, but rather to the almost universal desire to connect with God during times of stress.

Often, the conversations with patients are enjoyable and laughter is frequent. There are, however, some conversations in dire circumstances. I will share only two examples with you. On one occasion, I responded to a page from the ICU. When I arrived, there were no family or friends present and the nurses told me that the elderly patient was actively dying and would probably live only a few more minutes. There was, of course, nothing I could do but pray. It struck me as I prepared to pray that it would be a prayer for both the patient and the nurses who were obviously distraught. I said the prayer and then continued to hold the patient’s hand and stroke her head until she was pronounced dead about fifteen minutes later. It was an experience I will never forget.

The second example occurred in the telemetry unit. I visited a patient who appeared to be healthy, but I could immediately tell that she was upset and very “down.” After several minutes of conversation, she disclosed that her cancer had returned and earlier that day she learned that her situation was “incurable.” She was still waiting news about how much life expectancy—and quality of life—she might have. This conversation lasted almost 90 minutes and I have had the privilege of seeing her several times since.

I do not want to leave the impression that each day is emotionally draining. To the contrary, there have been many more visits with patients and family when we celebrated successful surgeries, good news, or impending release from the hospital. However, no matter the direction of a visit, every opportunity I’ve had to sit down with a patient or family has been rewarding and educational.

So, you ask, why is this blog titled “When in Rome…”? It has to do with my daily commute to and from the hospital. The Metro D.C. area has the reputation as one of the worst in the country for traffic congestion—one article I read ranked it as #6. It is a well-deserved reputation. Driving time to and from Sibley can vary from 35 minutes to well over an hour and there is no rhyme or reason to where you will fall on the spectrum on any day and…I have yet to encounter the doomsday scenario of a wreck on the interstate that could easily result in a drive time of over two hours.

The metro area has an incredible network of paved pedestrian/bike paths. The combination of the traffic problems and biking paths has resulted in a huge number of people who commute to and from work on bicycles—I am now one of them. My next door neighbors bike in and out of D.C. for work on all but the worst winter days. When I took the position at Sibley, a bit of research revealed that one of the bike paths runs within 200 yard of the hospital. I have now been regularly biking in and out of Sibley for almost six weeks. The route is 16.5 miles each way and takes just over an hour. It has been great fun and a super way of relieving stress after work.

Darla thinks I’m crazy.

God’s Peace to you all,

Randy

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[1] Of note, I do not see my chaplaincy role as “educator” on faith issues. Instead, I listen to the patient’s views and offer comments about faith only if the patient asks for my views. Even then, I make it clear in my comments that I provide only my thoughts and nothing should be taken as the way to approach God.