Building Connections by Being Vulnerable
As a board-certified chaplain at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano, Jeff E. works with patients, families and employees of every faith – or no faith, supporting them at every stage.
Whether helping parents arrange a baptism for their new baby, talking to a patient facing a difficult health issue or counseling a family on decedent care, Jeff engages the humanity in people and allows them to be vulnerable by showing them his own humanity and vulnerability.
What did you want to be as a kid, and how did you ultimately choose your career?
I had a lot of exposure to woundedness and loss in my childhood. My family was large, so I think I was just statistically predisposed to that. I also grew up in the church, and I remember spending considerable energy in childhood and in adolescence trying to make sense of God and suffering. It makes sense to me now that I would become a pastor in a hospital. I saw it done poorly so many times, and I knew I could do it better.
What is your favorite part of the job, and what are your biggest challenges?
My favorite part is getting to serve in the health care industry, because we serve people with a wide variety of faiths and experiences. But that’s also the most challenging aspect. Because our culture is polarized and our identifiers have become our identity, many people unconsciously engage only the familiar in life. Disarming the fear and uncertainty behind the boundaries people create is a daily constant, and every family is different.
How do you incorporate Consumer Focus into your daily work?
I engage the humanity in people and build rapport by letting people get to know me and letting myself be vulnerable. I listen to them, and invite them to vulnerability, too, and then honor it. People respond well when they feel seen and known. That’s the art of pastoral care in a diverse environment like a hospital: not only acknowledging our diversity but trusting it.
How do you think our being a faith-based system benefits employees and consumers?
In 2018, Pew Research Center found that nine out of 10 people in this country believe in some kind of higher power, and that seven out of 10 believe this higher power is responsible for the good and bad things that happen in their life. Pew Research is easy to cite because of their familiarity, but any literature review will affirm that people rely on their faith to find meaning, cope and make decisions. This is especially true during a health crisis. Faith functions as a guide, like any other embedded philosophy in one’s life.
Offering faith-based health care honors this part of our humanity. It recognizes that the people we serve make sense of their existential challenges by relying on their faith and family systems. A good chaplain will assess the efficacy of these systems, and will invite and encourage their involvement in the care plan. It is easy to lose one’s sense of self in a hospital admission, especially in acute care. I often work to ground people within their good systems again, which builds resilience, coping and peace out of their own resources – resources they will continue to have access to after discharge.
What is something unique about you that most people don’t know?
In the spring of 2007, I was a street performer in Salzburg, Austria. I sang and played guitar so that I could finance more travel around Eastern Europe – best money I ever made.
By Robin P. Loveman • Posted June 11, 2019
