Yeesh

[cjsmith]

There's nothing quite like having a telephone call wherein the person on the other end, filling out a form, asks not only for an emergency contact but "is there any religion you would like to list".

Comments

[7patches.livejournal.com]

Identifying the patient's religion is not just for the possibility of death. Hospitals have chaplains in residence, who visit patients. They identify patients who might have an especially distressing medical problem, or are elderly and have no family, or things like that. Some patients might consider it an intrusion, and others consider it to be part of the healing process.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Well, this isn't a hospital, and I'd hope that those services would be only on request even were it a hospital, but otherwise that makes sense.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

That's odd that they'd ask that for an outpatient procedure. I had to answer that one with both my surgeries. "leave me alone" was my response first time around, i believe; gotta love those narcotics!!

Hospital chaplains can be quite helpful, even for heathens like me. When my grandma died, the chaplain was sent, sat with us for quite a while, and was the person i recommended mom call when she wanted to raise a little hell about why certain things were or were not done ~ he put her to all the right people. when my mom went into cardiac arrest, the chaplain was sent to sit with me til family arrived, and stuck with us til we were able to see mom in ICU. it was helpful to have someone who knew how the hospital worked and all, as we were not thinking clearly.

hospital chaplains: a multipurpose tool! :-P