The most recent moment came at a Schwartz Rounds discussion at St. Paul’s Hospital (SPH) on “Contemporary Stress.”

As one of the facilitators, I was worried that if I let people talk too much about the negative moments, I would never be able to pull them out of their emotional nose dive. And then another St. Paul’s Hospital miracle happened: the more people listened to each other, the happier they became. Yes, you read that right: they actually left a one hour session on stress feeling happy!

Reflecting back on the experience, I realized that we had achieved the purpose of Schwartz Rounds – to promote compassionate healthcare – in its truest sense.

“Compassion” means “to suffer with,” and that is exactly what we did.

This compassion in action occurs throughout Catholic healthcare in a variety of contexts.

Imagine, for example, two nurses walking out to their cars and sharing simply that it was a long day. Or a parish visitor coming to see someone who cannot leave their home and praying with them. Or an administrator realizing that they cannot do anything to solve an issue, but committing to helping a frontline team member track down better supports. All of these scenarios involve people who cannot solve the problems of the person they are with, but they can take that person’s hand and walk down the road with them for a little while.

Consider another example: a manager recognizes that spirits are low after the deaths of several patients who had been cared for by the team for a number of months. What can she do to help them?

It might be tempting to think that the answer is to close the unit to high severity patients, or to find some other way to shield the team. But what this team might really need is just an opportunity to be heard and to grieve the losses they have experienced.