This past week I had the privilege to be part of a group of seminary students who were being trained to visit hospital patients. One might think (I did) that visiting previously unknown patients is fairly straightforward stuff: simply go in to a person’s room who, say, is suffering from cancer, and exercise the same social and listening skills that we wield at a drinks party. Of course, the man at the drinks party has a tremendous ego who can’t listen to another person’s words and is more concerned about himself and how he is perceived than listening to the content of speech across from him. At least I am, such is the grip of vanity. But a patient who has saline solution instead of a gin and tonic, and who doesn’t care in the least about YOU has, naturally, different needs.
Some of those needs come out in verbal cues. The female readers of this blog probably already know this by instinct, but for a tone-deaf male like me, this is news. Little things, like when the patient says,
“It’s been a long stay – and the food stinks.” Or,
“You’re the first person who has come by to visit.” Or,
“It’s a beautiful day outside – I hope I can be discharged tomorrow.”
….are all like doorways. The emotion, the worries, the thing that concerns them are floating up to the surface of their conversation, and in their way, asking for attention. The teacher at the hospital this week gave as much help as she could to assist us in catching these cues, perhaps knocking at the doorways such conversations present, and helping a patient go one step further in expressing what it is that most troubles them.
I do not mean to parade a discourse about active listening, but the wonder at how often people mention things in the course of their speech which indicate hurt, worry, fear, and loneliness. And it’s not only in hospitals.
St. Nicodemus
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