Gossip

Chaplains are part of the IDT and that means they are susceptible to hearing gossip.  Word of caution: If you intend to maintain your integrity, you will be above gossiping.  Instead, you will be part of the solution to the problem of Gossip.

Consider these statistics:  Depending on what source you use (and they are very close in their findings), An active gossiper burns 65 hours of productivity per year.  You realize that this over a week and half of wasted time.  Yes, I am speaking as an administrator, but I realize my audience is comprised of the most ethical and moral of all persons.  Surely, you find this unacceptable.  Further, 86% of gossip regards corporate challenges.  Is it any wonder that gossip is so destructive? 

According to Teamworks (http://teamworks-works.com/venting-or-gossip-in-the-workplace/), this is a brief list of how destructive gossip is in the workplace. Gossip:

o   Decreases productivity: It is a time waster.

o   Compromises professional standards.

o   Makes problem areas worse.

o   Causes pain, resentment and distrust.

o   Management spends enormous energy finding out “who said what.”

o   Workers lose confidence in management if it’s allowed to continue.

If much of the gossip is about corporate challenges is there a way to discuss the problems without gossiping?  Remember, gossip is based on conjecture and very short of facts. In each meeting I conduct with my Chaplain Team, I have an agenda item devoted to “Rumors”.  The reason I do this is give the Chaplains a safe place to discuss any issues that they have heard about so I can arm them with facts.  Facts dispel gossip.  If you are in healthcare, you realize the friendly environment which existed to do the work of hospice is no more.  Change is all we have seen in the previous 3 years.  It’s frustrating to keep up with all the CMS decisions.  Upper management must be nimble and quick to guide the ship of hospice.  That often translates to instability and capriciousness.  Trust me, that is far from the truth.  To keep the hospice out of the ditch, changes must be made.  For instance, the new reimbursement model is the U-shaped model.  This affects nurse visits, social worker visits and Chaplain visits in the last 2 weeks of the patient’s life.  Reimbursement is dependent on the increased care for patients in this time frame.  Chaplains are busy, but must make extra effort to see their patients on Supportive Care.  It’s a change.  It takes extra time.  It disrupts a Chaplain’s visit rhythm.  But, it’s not optional, it is mandatory.  Our Chaplains know they can vent their frustrations to me.  I encourage that.  It’s better to vent to me than to others on the IDT as that would hurt morale and wound the Chaplain’s reputation.

How do handle gossip in your workplace?

To Our Newest Guests

As you have reviewed the articles, perhaps there is a topic of interest that I haven't covered.  What topics would you find interesting and helpful?  Please use the Comment section for this or just send me an email at rbehers@cshospice.org

Blessings to our Chaplain Colleagues in Israel

To our Chaplains in Israel.  Blessings to you.  How may we serve you?  What issues are you facing that we might address here?  You are always welcome at Embraced!

Reprise, with an addition: 3 Sure Signs of Burnout

I posted this article months ago, but want to reprise it with this key addition.  Another neon sign of burnout are misplaced priorities.  Meaning?  Simple, you forget yourself.  You are so consumed by the work, you forget your health, your family, your life.  For those of us who came into hospice chaplaincy from the pastorate know the ridiculous demands and superhuman expectations.  Friends, there is freedom in hospice chaplaincy.  As a Manager, I do NOT expect my Chaplain Team to work themselves beyond human capacity and demand they work 24/7.  What I do expect is that each Chaplain maintain spiritual, emotional, and physical health. Ours is a Chaplain-friendly environment. Claim your liberty!   Now, for the rest of the article.

There is no doubt that hospice chaplaincy is one of the most draining professions in healthcare. We hear of nurses that burn out; social workers that burn out; and, now, we will talk about Chaplains that burn out.  Here are 3 sure signs you are burning out:

1.       You isolate yourself.  You don’t connect with your Team, your Team Manager,  your fellow Chaplains, and your Spiritual Care Director.  You’re on your own and you don’t even realize it.   You break off conversations because you say you have patients to see (you do, but not right away…you could have spent time in fellowship).  You make up ‘reasons’ to avoid Chaplain meetings.  Your excuses sound acceptable, no one questions you.  At first, the isolation bothers you, but after a while, it is your new normal.  Friend, you’re headed for trouble.

2.       Your work begins to suffer.  You’ve been an excellent Chaplain, but now your work is slipping.  You make one call to a new patient to set an appointment and if there is no answer, you leave a message and ask the patient or caregiver to contact the office should they need you.  They never call… and you are ok with it.  The passion is gone.  The urgency is gone.  You call them once, document it, then forget it.  In addition, you neglect your patients.  I can’t tell you how many unfulfilled promises of a visit I have read through the years by Chaplains who are burned out.  Some of these unfulfilled promises (better termed “lies” because that is what they really are) were made up to a year ago or longer.  Friend, you’re in trouble now.

3.       You are beyond asking for help.  Your work pattern seems to be like quicksand.  You can’t get out of it.  You’re stuck and getting sucked down, helpless to stop the strong tug downward.  You now recognize what is happening.  Your productivity is extremely low, fellow IDT members are talking, calls are being made to your Managers by caregivers, complaints are filed.  Fried, it’s over.

Burnout is a terrible thing.  Yet, it can be averted.  But, you’re the only one who can call for help.  Self-awareness that was honed to a sharp edge gets dull.  You have to recognize that.  Unless there is someone on the IDT that really knows you well, you will become more isolated.  If you are burning out and are reading this and have gotten to this point in the article, I urge you to contact your Managers.  We get it. We can and will help.

Religion or Spirituality

It often puzzles me when these two concepts are used interchangeably.  When Chaplains confuse the two, it really causes a raised eyebrow.  With that in mind, I will present some of the best and thorough-going definitions of the term ‘spirituality’.

 

“Spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred.”  National Consensus Panel Report, Improving the Quality of Spiritual Care as a Dimension of Palliative Care: The Report of the Consensus Conference, October, 2009.

 

“We can define “spiritual” as a life force that awakens us to healing, wonder, community, trust, deep emotions and authentic hope.  What is “spiritual” within a person informs our understanding of identity, our place in the world, our purpose and our values.  This, in turn, inspires creativity, mutuality, morality, and serving the good of all.  This can be achieved through faith in a religion, of course, but by defining it this way, it need not be limited solely to the religious realm.”  Spiritual Health Therapy: New Nomenclature for Spiritual Care Provision at William Osler Health System, Plainviews, February 17, 2016

Volume 13 No. 2.

 

“Spirituality is the culmination of a person’s quest to discover the ultimate and transcendent meaning and purpose of his/her life. Spirituality reflects the essence and substance of that person - the values, thoughts, emotions, motivations, dreams, experiences, assumptions and relationships that make the person a unique individual. Spirituality provides the individual with the vitality, drive and determination to develop and function as a fully actualized person. Spirituality is not static; it changes over time in response to external events and the person’s ever-developing and evolving sense of self.”  Hillel Bodek, MSW, LCSW-R, BCD

 

I encourage all members of the IDT to review the above in order to recognize the depth and breadth of spirituality and to recognize it may include religious expression, but that religious expression is not required for a person to be spiritual. 

Thank you...

Thank you to all who have visited Embraced. We now have over 7,000 visitors to the site. I am well aware that this is a small-niche site designed for hospice chaplains (although chaplains of all markets could benefit, as well).  The fact that there are followings from around the world indicate that Embraced is meeting needs.

I am always happy to receive your comments and feedback.  If there is a topic you would like me to address, just let me know and I will be happy to give it a go.  

Chaplain Colleagues, I honor and respect your work.  It is sacred and absolutely necessary in the healthcare environment.  Thank you, once again.

Please…don’t say these things

At times we all say the dumbest things to patients because of a lapse of thought.  This article is just to remind us of the care we need to take in our conversations with hospice patients.

 

1. “When God shuts a door. He opens a window.”  Have you ever thought that from the patient’s perspective that yes, a door has shut, but there is no window?  This statement obviously is religious graffiti with no basis in thoughtfulness.  It might be a good exercise to read Job 2:11-13 to gain some insight into how to suffer with another human being:
   When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.  When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.
   What did these three friends do?  Correct.  They sat in the ashes with Job and said not a word because they saw his greatness of suffering.  Our western culture hates silence to the point that people feel like they have to interrupt the silence with inane words.  We have to better than that.  We continue…
    
2. “If you pray hard enough…”  Oh, how this incites many emotions within me.  Why don’t we just say to the terminally ill person, “Look, this cancer (or whatever is claiming this person’s life) is all your fault.  If only you had been more religious this wouldn’t have happened.”  I would not expect a professional Chaplain to say something so outrageous as this, but it calls us to remember that our words have the power to support and encourage and to crush.  Let’s be very sure we support and encourage.
    
3. “God is in charge…”  True, but your patient is experiencing life on the emotional side of things and is not really concerned with systematic theology at the moment. 
4. “God will never give you more than you can handle.”  Again, true, and again this is not New Testament survey, this is life.

 

The above are usually stated by those who intellectualize suffering.  If they can put a cliché to their religious thought then they believe everything will be alright and they can drop these statements on unsuspecting, dying patients.  I simply ask you to swap places with the dying and answer how  you believe you would feel is someone laid such guilt trips on you as you lay searching to make congruence out of your suffering and your faith.

 

Here are a couple of other statements that can pierce a soul much like the iceberg pierced the Titanic:

1.  “You can fight this.”  No comment needed.
2.  “God must need you in Heaven.”  Pulling my hair out on this one.  Another variation is “God must have needed another angel when you baby died.”
    
   Why not something like this:
   “I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this.  I love you.”
   “You are so loved.”
   “You are not alone.”
    
   Chaplain Colleagues, we will hear well-meaning people say the worst things to our patients.  Please educate and assist them to speak words of peace and comfort.  Not an easy assignment, but yet, it is one of blessed tasks.