One of the difficult parts of being a hospital chaplain is trying to figure out the initial contact visit. It's fairly often that I walk into a room where I don't have much back story of even a diagnosis of a patient. At the first moment I'm usually doing some sort of rapid fire assessment to see how I might best interact with the patient. I've found that frequently a combination of a big smile and acting like I know what I'm doing is usually a pretty good place to start.
But not always…….
Sometimes I walk into the room and it's just heavy and at that moment I'm glad that as an introvert I don't always feel like I need to fill the space with my voice. I've been with some patients recently where just standing next to the bed and being "present" is all I need to do. It's usually at that moment that in my head I'm praying or reciting the 23 Psalm.
It's probably worth noting that there are many groups of people that we are actually taking care of in the hospital. Patients, Families, Friends, Doctors, Nurses and other hospital employees. I've found that some of my best conversations even happen with people waiting for elevators.
I'm still learning all of this. Yesterday I walked into a room and the first words out of my mouth was "Man you have got to stay off the skateboard" it just felt right and he did smile and laugh but that was followed up by a big wince because he's not supposed to laugh.
