Chaplain's Corner

More often than I would like to admit, this complaint is voiced by patients I care for.  My wife had one of these, “Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?” experiences a few years ago.  She was having day surgery at a city hospital.  When the anesthesiologist came to talk to her about the sedation he would use to put her under for the procedure.  In the course of the conversation my wife shared with him that it was difficult to insert an IV in her forearm and that he would have good success using the veins on the back of her hand.  His irritated response was, “I have been doing this for 15 years and I certainly don’t need you telling me how to do my job.”   After 11 attempts to insert an IV into my wife’s forearms, the anesthesiologist tried in my wife’s hand and successfully inserted the IV on the first attempt.

There was no apology, no admission that he should have listened to his patient.  My wife is a gracious woman and she chose not to express her anger towards him for disregarding the information she shared with him.  She didn’t even say to him, “I told you so.”  But the impact of such experiences is to walk away with the residual belief that these people who are mandated to do no harm, do great harm by refusing to stop, listen and trust their patients to the same degree that they expect their patients to trust them.

Just yesterday, as I sat with a woman who suffers from a chronic condition, I bore witness to the same pain, inflicted by the same carelessness.  As I checked in with her about a procedure that had been done the day before, she expressed her frustration with both the nurses and a doctor who “blew her off” when she tried to share with them what works and what doesn’t work with her tortured body.  Because these medical professionals would not listen to her, she experienced unnecessary pain, both physically and spiritually.

But doctors and nurses are not the only people who at times don’t regard their patients highly enough to stop, listen and take seriously their concerns.   This is a common reality everywhere in many relationships.  It is true in marriages, parents often behave this way with their children and many friendships are destroyed because we don’t regard the other with sufficient respect to stop, listen and respond to what we hear.

In Chaplaincy training a lot of time is spent one this business of listening.  And because identifying a problem without offering any corrective is simply complaining, why don’t we think for a few minutes about some of the things we can do to become good listeners.

First – listening requires the investment of time.  Although we all have the exact same amount of time each day, 24 hours, we must choose how we will invest that time. If we do not value the thoughts and feelings of the people we connect with in our family, work and social lives; we may very well not be willing to invest the time necessary to really listen to what others have to share with us.  In our, “I never have enough time” culture, if we want to leave those we connect with feeling that we truly care – we will have to choose to invest the time necessary to listen.

Attention – not only must we invest time, but we must invest our attention.  This requires several things.  First, it requires that we open our mind to what the other is saying.  Many people, because so few have ever really listened to them, have a hard time expressing themselves.  Being attentive and patient as the other formulates their thoughts and finds the words to express them takes discipline, but it also communicates worth.  Most of us have numerous things vying for our attention almost all the time.  To give another our attention, we must be willing to “shelve” those competing thoughts, so that we can pay attention to what the other is seeking to tell us in the moment.

Engagement – If we are willing to invest time and attention we must then be willing to invest engagement.  We need to become active, engaging our minds, our emotions, and our spirits in the connection that is taking place.  When we are not “getting it” we need to admit, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand what you are saying, could you say that again.”  We must remember communication is a reciprocal activity; it is a dance between two partners who are engaged in the endeavor of giving and receiving, in valuing and being valued.

Most of the listening “techniques” that you will find in books and on websites fall under one or more of these three investments that are required to really hear another person.  Things like facing the speaker, maintaining eye contact, minimizing distractions, and not becoming defensive all have to do with one’s willingness to invest time, attention and engagement in the endeavor of listening to others.

Now, just knowing these things doesn’t make us better listeners.  The other day I made a phone call in response to a message left on my phone.  The person I called is a person I talk to regularly and about half way through the conversation I became aware that I was answering emails and sorting through papers on my desk and not really giving this person my time, attention and engagement, shame on me!

Listening is a lot of work but it is work that pays a good return in the relationships of our life.  For when we listen, actively listen, investing our time, attention and engagement in the conversation with another, the potential for genuine connection and communicating worth is high.

Health care has become a culture of hurry, hurry, hurry.  Staffing levels job requirements are taking health care professionals away from those they care for, often pressuring them to spend less and less time with the person they are trying to help.  This systemic problem is making us bad listeners, it is communicating to the professionals in the system that other things have much greater value than the person in the bed we are mandated to help.  I don’t know what can be done to deal with the system, but perhaps a “people revolution” is what is required.

A revolution of care in which health care professionals simply decide, “we will listen to the people we care for” and if that causes problems for the system, then maybe the system needs to take a good hard look at itself and make some corrections.  You all remember the movie “Patch Adams” in many ways he led a revolution against a system that had stopped listening.  Now, they system never really changed, there were not enough “revolutionaries” to produce that kind of change, but he has become something of a hero, and when we watch the movie, there is something within many of us that says, “Yes, that is the kind of person I want to be.”

I challenge you, become a revolutionary, and choose to listen, really listen to the others in your life.  You have no idea what impact that choice will have.