For many people, uncertainty or fear about being sick or in the hospital can be as distressing as physical symptoms. Stress and worrying can even worsen symptoms like pain.
That's why spiritual care can be an essential part of treatment at Mayo Clinic.
"Illness is a spiritual event," says Abraham Labrada Santiago, a Mayo Clinic palliative chaplain. "It impacts your humanity at all levels. Chaplains provide a presence and a space for emotional expression, which allows for healing."
Chaplains like Labrada Santiago are an integrated part of healthcare teams in the hospital at Mayo Clinic. As spiritual care professionals, they may come from a particular faith tradition. A chaplain may be a Catholic priest or a Muslim imam. Faith-specific chaplains can perform sacred rituals or rites for people who ask for them.
But chaplains also have specialized training to support your well-being, even if you aren't religious. They can offer spiritual counseling and active listening to ease emotional distress and help you cope with changes in your health.
Here are 5 points in a healthcare journey when a chaplain can offer support, no matter what your faith background looks like.
1. Making difficult medical decisions
Healthcare is full of choices, many of which are not easy. According to Mayo Clinic chaplain Laura Lovejoy, a common decision people face is whether to pursue aggressive or invasive treatment or let nature take its course.
"I meet family members trying to decide whether to put their mom in a nursing home against her wishes because she's not safe at home," she says. "Or whether to agree to a feeding tube for a parent with dementia who doesn't remember how to eat."
People may even face difficult choices about their own care, like deciding between a treatment that will extend life but possibly cause painful side effects. How do you balance your own values in life with the advice of your healthcare team and the wishes of your loved ones?
Chaplains are a unique part of your healthcare team because they serve as a bridge between your spiritual background and the medical system. They are trained to help with decision-making in several ways:
- Empowering you to explore your goals, wishes and values.
- Actively listening to your spiritual, ethical or cultural concerns about your care.
- Helping you communicate your wishes with loved ones and your care team.
- Guiding difficult conversations with your family about your decisions.
Many choices don't have a clear "right" answer. But working with a chaplain can help you weigh the things that are important to you so that you can feel at peace with your decision.
2. Preparing for surgery
At Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, chaplains are scheduled to check in with people who are about to have surgery. Though this visit is often a quick one, many people feel more at ease after speaking with a chaplain.
For some people, that may mean praying together. But for people who don't have a specific faith tradition, a chaplain can provide a nonjudgmental space for you to express your feelings about the procedure.
The recovery period after major surgery like a heart transplant also may bring up emotional or spiritual distress. Making a connection with a chaplain during your hospital stay allows you time to check in or share your hopes and concerns at each stage of your healing journey.
3. Being touched by organ transplant
While organ transplant is often a lifesaving gift, it also can be an event surrounded by fear, stress and grief. People waiting for transplant may spend months in the hospital until an organ becomes available.
"Waiting becomes a real stress point for people," says Mayo Clinic chaplain Karen Heistand.
As the director for Mayo Clinic Clinical Pastoral Education, Heistand or one of her students sits with people whose lives depend on a transplant. "Sometimes they need just a calm presence. Sometimes prayer. Sometimes they need readings that will help them be at peace."
When an organ does become available, it can be a complicated time of joy and of sadness, because sometimes another person's life has ended. In those cases, chaplains also support the grieving family of the person whose death has made the transplant possible.
"Often, when I'm called to the bedside of a person about to receive a transplant, they want to express gratitude for the donor's family through prayer or other means," says Lovejoy. "People receiving a transplant may have this awareness that somebody just died, and because of that death, now they're going to have another chance at life."
4. Approaching the end of life
End-of-life care is one of the areas in which chaplains are most well known. People with terminal illnesses or advanced age often face difficult questions about whether their life had meaning and what will happen next. They may want to mend a broken relationship, or they may worry about how they'll be remembered.
"These are hard conversations," says Labrada Santiago. "But they're important. And we can facilitate them."
Some of the ways chaplains help people approach the end of life peacefully include:
- Helping the person create a spiritual legacy document or video to help loved ones remember them.
- Offering grief counseling to the person at the end of life as well as to their loved ones.
- Providing guidance through the process of forgiving or asking for forgiveness.
For some people, religious rites like prayer, anointing and smudging may be comforting, especially in times of transition and death. Others may find peace in music, stories or self-reflection. A chaplain can support any of these rituals as requested by the patient.
5. Celebrating joy or feeling grateful
The words "Call the chaplain" don't always mean that someone is in distress. Good news happens often at a place like Mayo Clinic.
When cancer treatment is successful or biopsy results come back showing no sign of disease, it can feel good to share your joy with a chaplain — especially if that chaplain was with you when you were fearing the worst outcome.
Gratitude can be a spiritual event as well. For some people, that may mean asking a chaplain to pray for healthcare professionals they've grown close to. Or a chaplain may listen to your gratitude and help you share it in a way that feels meaningful.
"There's amazing peace when people feel supported and cared for," says BJ Larson, director of Chaplain Services at Mayo Clinic. "To be accompanied when you're facing difficulty can restore hope. People can tap into the hope that they've had at other times in their lives and know that they are not alone."