Visiting Clergy

Do’s and Don’ts in Hospital Visitation – Etiquette and Recommendations

Naturally, there are enormous differences in religious denominations and, so, that’s also true in the expectations the hospitalized have when someone visits them from the parish, church, synagogue or mosque. Yet, despite those variations, there are some underlying features that will help assure that you not only find the patient you are looking for, but interact with them and the hospital staff in a mutually-agreeable fashion.

1. Collect your thoughts before you arrive. After parking, confirm the information you received prior to coming to the hospital at the Information Desk – patients are discharged throughout the day or may have been transferred to another room in the hospital.
2. Note hospital areas with specialized populations: Intensive Care, Maternity, and Psychiatry. These areas of the hospital have heightened restrictions on access; usually, they require that you use the telephone located outside of them in order to gain access to patients within those units
3. Have a plan for the visit, but don’t expect to use it. Whether you plan to engage in a routine visit or something more, balance your plan with a healthy does of discernment once you see the patient.
4. Do not obstruct the flow of care. Be aware of plugs and tubes, as well as the demands placed on healthcare professionals who are responsible for the patient. Introduce yourself, tell them why you are there, and be willing to let them do what they must.
5. Be flexible in the length of your visit. While the patient might be a member of your congregation, if they are not well known to you the visit should be brief. For patients in Intensive Care, the same should also be true – brief visits are preferable. However, if the individual is relatively alert, pain-free, and sociable, a longer visit might be in order. Finally, a single adult who is not getting much company and you know has no immediate family might warrant a longer visit than someone who is getting more company than they can handle.
6. Better to under-stay than to over-stay. Take your clue from the patient. Yawning, sagging eyelids, or heed verbal clues like “thanks for coming” constitute good rules of thumb.
7. In serious situations, such as an emergency room call in regard to a traumatic condition for one of your people, in regard to the patient who has received a terminal diagnosis or the dying patient, the amount of time required varies tremendously. The tips in numbers 5 and 6 usually do not apply in situations such as those.
8. Be sensitive, but not too timid. Don’t avoid serious issues if the patient brings up the matter of life-threatening surgery, for instance. Assess the appropriate depth of the conversation as the visit unfolds. Avoid talking about yourself or current events.
9. If you believe that a follow-up visit would help the patient, whether due to time constraints or the seriousness of the patient’s situation, refer the matter to the hospital’s chaplains. At Saint Vincent Hospital, if you are still in the building, simply pick up any phone and dial ext 26246 or from an outside location call 508-363-6246.
10. Don’t sit on the bed without permission. Minimize direct physical contact such as shaking hands due to infection control issues unless wearing gloves. If food is brought in, consider shortening your visit. Unless you have reached a break-through point in the conversation, when physicians, nurses or therapists come in, try and wrap up what you were doing. Ask them if you can have a few minutes.
11. Drawn curtains and closed doors usually mean something is going on that requires privacy.
12. Never minimize the comments that the patient makes because doing so encourages those fears or issues to go underground and not verbalized. Upon hearing from the patient how bad things are, don’t say “Well, it could be worse.” Attempting to find comfort in someone else’s misery is never a good technique.
13. Have an exit strategy but don’t appear to be rushing out the door.
14. Remember the patient’s visitors or family.