The Heart of a Hospice Professional

Healthcare professionals are supposed to maintain professional boundaries. In maintaining appropriate relationships with our patients and families, we create boundaries that show them where our roles as their caregivers stop and start.

Healthy boundaries are part of the ethical and legal requirements that come with having a professional license. Hospice professionals are expected to do our jobs well, bringing every skill we have to provide quality care that meets the patient’s needs. Support the family, be compassionate, stay neutral and nonjudgmental, meet every clinical need. That’s a long list of tasks hospice professionals are supposed to accomplish.

Sometimes we have to be a little detached. Not just detached from the family dramas that we might get drawn into, but separated from the emotional impact of watching the suffering of our patients and the ones who love them. How about those professional boundaries now? Is it possible to be a skilled objective clinician AND truly care about our patients?

It is possible. And hard as hell. You’re naive if you expect to serve dying patients and not feel an emotional impact. It’s normal and human to feel other people’s pain, to want to reduce their suffering. Most end of life professionals are empathic, so putting themselves into other people’s shoes comes easier to them.

I can’t say we always maintain those professional boundaries. I’ve been guilty of moving the “fences” around relationships with my patients and their families. Some of the best hospice clinicians I know are the same way. The social worker who took a milkshake to her patient at every visit, knowing he was distressed by the way his drastic weight loss made him look. An aide who gave a manicure to an actively dying patient. A nurse who helped make a trip to Disney possible for a seriously ill child. The chaplain who brought a hot tea to a caregiver who had been up all night with a loved one.

Hospice teams use all the tools at their disposal to meet the needs of their patients – counseling, medications, personal care, diagnosing, referrals, everything we can think of.

We also use our hearts.

No matter who you are, or where you are in your hospice journey, you are The Heart of Hospice.

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