good morning. welcome to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric weiss. i'm happy to be coast this morning. the bay area is noted for its advancements in medical care and medical technology. and in particular the notion that one is treating the whole person. in that context the field of spiritual care has emerged as a paramount concern for folks may go to a hospital system or healthcare situation. we want to invite you into a conversation about spiritual care and our hospitals and healthcare system with reverend. tom harshman was director of mission integration at sequoia hospital which is a division of

dignity health. and reverend. julie hamada who a spiritual care california pacific medical center affiliated with sutter health. i also want to add is that while i'm not posting mosaic on the ceo of a jewish organization that is called the bay area jewish healing center. we provide jewish spiritual care to folks who are ill, dying, and bereaved throughout the bay area. and in particular we are a jewish central care resource for folks like reverend. harshman and reverend. i'm not provide special care to jewish committee . >> welcome. >> thank you. >> let's jump in and ask you how do you define or think of spiritual care?>> spiritual care is the discipline or okra professionals that attend to or listen to the spiritual needs and spiritual assets of patients of their loved ones,

and of staff in our institutions.>> i would add to that that spiritual care really tries to take care of the host sacred part of a person's life and their sense of being. when times are the most confusing or scary for them. >> we know that people often times can confuse the notion of spirituality and the notion of religion or theology. and suddenly they are then diagram where there are aspects that are common but also aspects that are different. each of you are ministers in your respective christian traditions and myself and rabbi. >> and you're a buddhist priest. >> and you are in the realm of spirituality and get religion and theology. it's a typical response is someone says i'm so vulnerable in the hospital. i don't want someone religious

coming in. i more of a spiritual person. i'm buddhist or spiritually christian or spiritually muslim or et cetera. or generically spiritual. that is a big topic and issue. how do pay attention to the distinction tween spirituality and religion or theology? >> i have a question for tom to bounce off of that. at your hospital are you also seeing a huge amount of folks in admissions coming and saying that our spiritual but not religious. and so the larger demographics opening up for us and our -- it's and we don't really address >> spirituality is a larger category and religion is an expression of spirituality. there was article written a few years ago talking about how spirituality is looking at our relationships with self others the sacred. the earth.

and how we make meaning and purpose in our lives. the meaning and relationships are the two pieces of spirituality. religion certainly addresses those things. >> interesting. >> many patients might hesitate to talk specifically about religion. maybe they've been attending a religious community or services for many years but their ability to articulate sometimes for themselves is not as clear and they are dedicated in the hospital. many times we are addressing is not whether their theology or their understanding of their religion is accurate. but whether it is being helpful for them at this time during this hospitalization.>> what is a typical -- that might be the best were but a composite scenario about why someone in the hospital might welcome a visit from a chaplain or with a chaplain might encounter with

someone at the bedside?>> typical -- i can imagine has to do with loss and grief. that is common experience in the hospital either in the loss of an image of how a person's understands themselves now with a new diagnosis perhaps or if their life time has been limited by their disease than the loss of dreams and hopes and a variety of things. it's not uncommon for our chaplains to help able address grief and loss. as julie says sometimes they have understandings about grief and loss but haven't spoken them are seeing how those ways of attending to laws are relevant in their current situation of the health crisis. >> were off to a great start. let's take a quick break and continue the conversation with julie and tom in one moment.

welcome back. i'm rabbi eric weiss. we're in the middle of a conversation about spiritual care in the bay area with reverend. tom harshman start of mission integration at sequoia hospital division of dignity health and reverend. we cannot up a buddhist priest dread of spiritual care at california pacific medical center which is a division of sutter health. welcome back. >> thank you. >> we have for a conversation about what a typical composite bedside visit is for someone in the hospital. we were talking about how someone comes to the hospital and might be there because of the type of diagnosis that will probably limit or and their life and that brings up issues of loss of grief.

and different levels. i'm wondering given the way healthcare functions these days someone who comes to the hospital typically is there or for more extreme because health care these days tries to meet healthcare needs outside of the hospital bed. but also hospital stays are much shorter than they used to be. i'm wondering how we think about that window of spiritual care opportunity for someone who is coming to the hospital because they've had an operation . it could be something as seemingly benign as a hip replacement or the replacement -- meet replacement or something much more health challenging that someone -- healthcare diagnosis includes terminal prognosis. and chances are they will die from their prognosis for which they are also in the hospital

seeking care. what do you do with what is in some ways a small window of care opportunity? >> it's a very small window. you're right about that. one thing i would like to lift up a bit is that not everyone comes to the hospital and gets worse. many people come to the hospital and to get better or at least they get enough help that they can go home and continue to get better. many times what we are looking at is a small window where we might start posing certain questions or they might have some questions we can couple with during the hospitalization . they may or may not take that question home and engage that with their religious community or in their own spiritual journey or any discussion with family like what they want to do with their care as they get sicker for example. or maybe as they think about

getting older and mortality question comes up. many times we are a piece of that conversation. we don't try to solve it. in the same way i think sometimes healthcare isn't only about curing but about healing. we might offer them a healing experience of what it is to be able to talk about what is so painful for them. and offer a healing experience of having pain and to share that but also healing of being heard. >> i think also interestingly as you were talking i thought that hospitals have specializations in women's health issues. and someone come into the hospital to give birth is for the most part a joyous -- from the hospital prospective a successful experience. people leave with a fulfillment of hopes and dreams and new life. and that in and of itself is

also a small potent window of spiritual affirmation. >> as a part of that, we don't only look at what their needs are spiritually. look at what assets they have. and how their spiritual assets or -- our resources for them activated or not activated but our resources for them in celebration of those joyous moments or in dealing with a crisis. so we are -- i love the weight julie you talked about entering into the conversation just a brief conversation that helps them become more fully aware of what it is they have in their toolbox -- in their response resources. >> we live in a part of the country where we have such a sensitivity to how we are exposed to theology or religion. we live in a country with the

separation of church and state. in the hospital, how does someone come to knock on the door of the patient or come to actually sit at the bedside?>> it can happen in a variety of ways. it can be because of a referral from a medical provider who has heard the patient expressed some concerns. it could be because the persons -- said when they were admitted they are of a particular faith tradition and would like to see a chaplain or someone from their own faith community. spoke it could also be by the chaplain going and introducing himself or herself to the patient. there's a variety of imaginations of what a chaplain should be or would be if they were to show up in my room. and a good way to have it be of

the patient's choice and a real experience as a chaplain to introduce him or herself to the patient and at the patient experienced what a chaplain would be. and decide whether a conversation with that person would be life-giving for them. >> heart of what i think you're framing is there's a subtle but powerful educational moment for someone to understand i need they may not have otherwise articulated. but in that moment of vulnerability whether it is happy or otherwise challenging is open to that kind of consideration beyond their hospital stay. >> it's also important for us to be a resource to communicate with and connect that individual with their own religious community if they have one. we call people from the jewish healing center to come see patients in our hospital who would like to see a rabbi or person of the jewish faith. because our team doesn't currently have anyone on our team that can address some of those needs. >> it's a fascinating interplay between an outside resource

come into healthcare setting and the professional relationship with that builds over time to the service of the community. let's take a quick break and come back in a moment as we continue this conversation.

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welcome back to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric weiss. we're having a conversation about spiritual care with reverend. tom harshman and reverend. julie hanada. we were talking earlier about the patient access is spiritual care during the hospital stay what it's for something joys which help her or something more challenging. but healthcare system is its own system. people work there with nurses and radiation technology et cetera. what about spiritual care the system itself? the staff?

>> we think about our staff as our permanent congregation. and our patients and their families as the transient congregation. we take care of the spiritual needs and assets of the staff as well. julie and i were talking about how we are preparing for nurses week next month. at both of our facilities, that involves the blessing of hands of nurses and other hospital workers who are interested in that. >> and how do you find the expressed need from staff coming to you? does it happen in the course of a particular situation with the patient? does happen within a particular unit that might be more stressful than other units? >> there's a variety of ways. sometimes there might be an incident on a nursing unit that has us coming specifically to create a healing environment or

human experience for the team. that can be a very important experience and way of supporting a particular incident happening. we also -- when they check in with nurses about talking to a patient or circling back about a visit we had with a patient, we always check in with the nurse. i know it was important for me after attending to a death of a patient to then meet with the nurse after as she was with the body preparing it to be moved. we would spend some time talking about how it was beautiful to see the family there or how they -- the staff were so invested in care for this patient for how long the patient was there. it gave them a time to debrief their own experience and that was a wonderful way for me to connect with individual nursing. >> we never know what will touch a staff person.

just as we never know what will touch in a patient's life story or their situation. sometimes a staff personal experience memory or be deeply moved by an interaction with a patient and want to talk about that. as members of the healthcare team, we are available and right there. we have long-term relationships with staff. those conversations just unfold. >> one of the things i think people don't realize about the power of what you do for staff is that staff as human beings and in part in healthcare as part of their own spiritual journey they can be quite moved . if there's a beautiful successful birth and new life all the way through to a patient to dies. that loss certainly resides most primarily with the person in their family but those losses

and celebrations have an impact on the basic humanity and the spiritual life of the nurse. and the doctor and whoever else has been involved in that experience. i wonder if you could talk about that. i know in those settings the spiritual care for example commutative laws -- to militant laws among nurses of their work and their capacity to give. >> it's amazing how they dedicate their lives to caring for others and it really does touch them deeply when patients die and patients get ill or rl. it does really wait on them. it's not uncommon for nurses to join us in prayer. they might be doing something with the patient may be the point in the visit having our own visit were we get to prayer and the nurse

will want to join us. or it's been common for me to have doctors and nurses join the family in prayer together around the patient as the patient was dying. it helps staff bring forward their own spirituality in caring for others. and that's a huge important part of caring for staff. >> i think it's a wonderful example of how people may not realize a system takes care of itself to the bedside service of the patient who is coming in from the community and has a relatively transient stay but nonetheless is therefore something important. let's take a quick break and come back in a moment.

>> welcome back to mosaic. i'm anti-eric weiss.

-- rabbi eric weiss. we talking about spiritual cares. julie what is a concrete example of the patient experience? >> what i want to share a story that had with the patient who was very elderly and frail. and she had come in for a surgery that was going to maybe not be -- there was a 50-50 chance. she was concerned about whether to do the surgery or not. and either way she was stuck. but as she shared her faith journey with me i could tell she had a very active life and this was just a huge change for her not to be active in her life any longer. as we talked and she shared more about her faith attorney, -- faith journey. it doesn't seem like christ would relate to you differently

if you weren't so active in your life anymore. and she says i've always been like martha p able to do for others. i can't imagine not being able to do that. i asking that question and knowing really by listening to her story about her relationships and her faith that she really could make a shift to be less active and be more of a mary as she put it and be able to sit at the foot of christ and to just be able to be held in the experience of not having to do. but this changed who she saw herself as. but her faith foundation that allowed her to shift from being a doer to a receiver at this point when she had no options and she was in the hospital and very frail. and we created a care plan for her to help her keep that image

of being loved and being a mary and able to sit at the foot of christ. it was a transformative spiritual experience and religious experience for her. we were able to that because she already had the space foundation from which we could draw from. >> it's interesting -- you're a buddhist minister telling a story of a christian patient and in this case someone who is christian informed and using her own theological religious metaphors for her own experience. that is a bit of a peek into how religion is -- and theology are respected and the versatility of spiritual care departments in the theological spectrum. also i'm wondering if in the moment could talk about where people aren't theologically grounded. baby by design or by choice.

more generically spiritual -- i know it's a big leap but how that actually goes to the core of how people are trained. >> julie talked -- give this example of the woman offering some words but police training helped her here those words in a particular framework and the way of thinking through what might be the most helpful between spot. that is in part due to your training. and our training. the chaplains are a subset of religious leadership. spiritual care providers finish up whatever their religious tradition or spiritual tradition says makes them every legislator. and then come to hospitals or some other settings for a year- long specific training on learning the skills and also learning about themselves in order to be able to provide this kind of culturally competent religiously sensitive

care. >> if anyone is treated a can google spiritual care training >> association for clinical pastoral education is an option. >> and they can find more information. we need to put a, in the conversation. we're about to end our time on mosaic take you for being with the spirit a key reverend. tom harshman and reverend. julie hanada wonderful conversation. have a wonderful day.

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going to make you laugh...........3 comedians and a welcome to bay sunday. good to have you on board. we are going to make you laugh. three comedians any politician. that should get your sunday rocking. our first guest is a face in sentences go. he spent the last few decades lampooning just about every politician on the planet. he's author, columnist, political pundit. he's a funny guy. please welcome back to the show >> i'm good mr. durst. what is this love of politics? hasn't been around? >> i did read three newspapers a day. i read -- i grew up thinking everyone did. the crucible in vietnam so you had to be politica