Whenever Jack Shea walks into a room, good stories are sure to follow. Here is one the local theologian told at a Spirituality and Health Care conference this month, held in downtown Chicago and sponsored by the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics.
“I was talking to a nurse who was Jewish,” said Shea, who is a scholar-in-residence at the center and frequent instructor at Loyola University’s Institute of Pastoral Studies. “She decided to say the Jewish prayer for atonement every time she washed her hands.”
That would be dozens of times per day for a nurse.
Shea says his first reaction was to think the woman was just adding to a long to-do checklist. Maybe she would be best served using the time to take a breather. But then Shea asked what the nurse was getting out of the prayer time.
“It reminds me not to think of each person as the disease diagnosed,” she said.
That’s what Shea calls a spiritual practice that can be woven into medical care. He spends an increasing amount of his time consulting with health care organizations and practitioners who are hoping to link the spiritual with the medical. “The medical caregivers are interested in their patients’ spirituality and how it can help the healing process,” said Shea, “and the caregivers are interested in their own spiritual life too.”
It appears institutions are noticing the trend. Shea is frequently asked by hospitals and health maintenance organizations alike to be a spiritual consultant. There is an open-mindedness among doctors not apparent even five years ago, he said.
“Many doctors are hurting,” he said. “They are more than willing to talk about it.”
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Dr. Bill Barnhart was one of 50 people who attended Shea’s workshop. He is the director of the residency programs at the University of Chicago’s Weiss Hospital on the North Side. He also helps teach an elective course at the university’s medical school that covers patient issues of religion and spirituality. His unit is about suffering.
“Many physicians can’t get past a person’s physical pain,” said Barnhart during a break. “As doctors we have to get to the whole person.”
Shea said his review of the research shows the American health care model is rapidly changing from a traditional physical-psychological-social form to one that includes a spiritual element as the fourth leg. But he said the emergence of the spiritual part of health care will depend on how the soul is regarded as compared to the body and mind. Doctors and patients will both have to think differently. “You can’t approach your spirit the same way you might decide to exercise the body or practice relaxation techniques for the mind,” said Shea. “We don’t tend to the soul, it tends to us.”
Shea said developing spiritual practice is what helps get more to a person’s “interior.” The practice can be simple, such as putting someone else first each day, whether it is opening a door for someone or listening without distraction to a loved one.
“You experience the joy of service,” he said. “All of the spiritual teaching disciplines believe giving to others means you receive more for yourself.”
Other ideas about developing a spiritual practice: Say a prayer or blessing as part of your wakeup routine. Use meal time to create a simple ritual that reminds you of what’s good in the world, maybe by thinking of something for which you are grateful. These suggestions can work for patients, loved ones or health care practitioners.
Not surprisingly, spirituality becomes most important when people feel their bodies and minds are failing them. Barnhart said he emphasizes to residents and medical students that “there is always an opportunity for healing even if a person can’t be cured.”
Shea likes to quote author Susan Sontag, who suggested that each person carries two passports, one to the land of the well and one to the land of the sick.
“When we enter into the health care world as a patient, even if we are in good health, we are often aware of an increased vulnerability,” Shea said. “People turn to the spiritual in these situations.”
Shea’s new book, “Spirituality & Health Care: Reaching Toward a Holistic Future” ($12.95 plus tax and shipping) is available by calling toll-free at 877-944-4401.
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To contact Bob Condor or find an archive of his columns, visit chicagotribune.com/go/health
His e-mail is bcondor@@tribune.com