To Preach or not to Preach

My pet peeve involves the people who want to volunteer at hospice because they've decided it's their calling to save people before they die. For the life of me, I don't understand why they can't see how offensive that is. If they were dying and someone of another faith waltzed into the room and proceeded to preach to them, I dare say they'd be offended.

Although I grew up Methodist, I've strayed rather far from there in the ensuing years, mostly because I've found that so many religions exclude everyone from other faiths. That's not for me. As long as someone is trying to be the best they can be, I don't care what religion they've chosen and see no reason to convert them to another. That, I realize, is heretical to many but, working in hospice, I see good people, not good religious people. It has colored my view.

It's been my experience that the most intolerant people are the religious ones, often seeing themselves as being a special group and everyone else as godless, or confused, or less than. Conversely, the people who seem the most accepting of others label themselves as spiritual, not religious.

Our own Spiritual Care department is great and they are careful to honor each individual's preferences. Perhaps because they interact with all the faiths, they've learned to appreciate them. Perhaps they're just extraordinarily tolerant. Whatever it is, they're most assuredly different from so many of the people who go through our volunteer interview process and when questioned about how they see their spirituality fitting into hospice, reply that that's their primary reason for wanting to volunteer. They are then indignant when told they can't pray over the patients - no, not even the ones who are unresponsive.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking and if I end up in hospice, I hope they don't tell you what room I'm in!

Pet Therapy

I'm not sure why it took me almost two years to realize that some of our pet therapists had a limited view of why they were there, but now I'm determined to rectify the problem. It's twofold, I think: (1) Since pet therapists in past training groups were not given a focus, they arrived at the conclusion that they were strictly there for people to pet the dog - not an unreasonable conclusion, I might add, because they were given all the statistics about lowered blood pressure, lowered heart and respiratory rates and better sleep patterns in patients following a pet visit. Since the focus was put on the pet, the volunteer's involvement in the process became superfluous. He or she saw himself as accompanying the dog. (2) I don't believe it's conscious, but even with all the training about active listening and good communication skills, it's still daunting to walk into a stranger's room and start up a conversation with patients and families, any of whom might be depressed, or angry, or distraught, or just plain uninterested. It's easy to arrive at the conclusion that standing in a doorway for a few minutes while everyone oohs and aahs over the cute puppy and dutifully pats him on the head constitutes a successful visit. Again, not unreasonable. The dog is happy, the patient and family are smiling and everyone seems more relaxed.

However, I thing the difference in the focus - from accompanying the dog, to using the dog as the entree into the room - is potentially huge. In the latter scenario, the volunteer takes over once the interest in the dog gets him into the room. Then if the patient wants to reminisce about the dog he took on a fishing trip to Montana twenty years ago, the volunteer should be prepared to sit down, get comfortable and use those active listening skills he learned in the volunteer training classes. The conversation doesn't need to include the disease process in order to be doing something positive for everyone in the room. Maybe the half hour spent reminiscing about a happy memory is enough to take the focus off the elephant in the room so everyone can relax a bit. Now that, it seems to me, is a much more satisfying and meaningful visit, fitting the description "therapy" more accurately