Patient Care: Spirituality at Work

by Terry Sheridan

If you’re a nurse, you know about the importance of stress reduction, mindfulness and holistic treatment in helping your patients. But have you considered their spirituality?

Dr. Christina Puchalski, director of the George Washington University Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWISH) in Washington, D.C., is convinced that you and every healthcare provider should.

“There is a tremendous dissatisfaction among patients, and people in general, with the healthcare system,” says Puchalski, who also is a professor in the George Washington University School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine and Health Sciences. “People feel disillusioned by medical procedures, a lack of compassion and the efficacy of procedures. And the complexity of the system makes choices very, very difficult.”

Post 9/11

More people, especially since Sept.11, 2001, increasingly are reflective – asking deep spiritual questions, she says. When they are ill or facing loss, those questions are even more prominent.

Nurses and other providers can incorporate spirituality into their work in several ways. The GWISH website offers a link to its spiritual assessment guide that caregivers can use for study.

“The model is that everyone who is caring for patients, everyone on the team, offers spiritual care,” Puchalski says. “The question comes, who does what?”

“Board-certified chaplains are the experts who can diagnose spiritual issues,” she says. Nurses and other caregivers would provide that care in a more “generalist way,” as Puchalski puts it. At the same time, she recognizes that spirituality is becoming a healthcare specialty.

It’s why she wrote what’s considered the first reference textbook on the topic, the “Oxford Textbook of Spirituality and Healthcare.” According to the university’s July 2012 announcement about the text, it’s intended to guide multidisciplinary practitioners.

Employer policies

In addition to patients’ spiritual care, during an interview, you might want to find out whether a potential employer respects the right of employees to practice their belief system. Other than traditional days off, would you be allowed to have a day for cultural time off?

“We advocate for employment to focus on wellness and an environment where people can be their authentic self,” Puchalski says.

But Puchalski wants to aim for what she calls deeper and broader benefits. GWISH is working to develop wellness initiatives, including focusing on what makes a company a good place to work.

“One of those reasons has to be that an employer allows employees to find their own sense of balance,” she says. “If that means meditating or running or having a moment of silence, does the employer allow that?”

You may even broach the topic of developing a spiritual care model.

GWISH developed the “Whole-Person Clinic” that emphasizes “the focus of care should be on health and healing rather than just eradication of disease,” according to the institute’s website. It means that healing, as differentiated from cure, can occur any time.

The model is based on recommendations for spiritual care from the 2009 National Consensus Conference in Palliative Care. That care includes a physician, psychiatrist, board-certified chaplain and social worker who interview the patient during intake. The team, and the patient, develop a treatment plan.

You won’t want to bring up your first vacation right away in a job interview. But if you really want to delve into the topic for an intensive week, GWISH offers a retreat for healthcare providers and practitioners every August in Assisi, Italy.

Fuente: GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences - AllHealthcareJobs.com