Sacred Space: Finding Room for the Holy in Primary Care
Panelists: Katherine K. Henderson, MRP, MDiv, Duke Outpatient Clinic; Patrick Hemming, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of General Internal Medicine, Duke University Health System
The Duke Outpatient Clinic is an outpatient hospital-based clinic providing primary care to underserved and marginalized patient populations. Our clinic provides care regardless of insurance status or ability to pay, and seeks to provide a primary care alternative to expensive urgent and emergency care. Medically, the Duke Outpatient Clinic offers wrap-around care to highly complex patients, over half of whom also have a documented mental health diagnosis. Theologically, this clinic serves “the least of these,” affirming the dignity and worth of all people regardless of their socioeconomic status, and witnessing through concrete action that even in the depths of suffering, we are never alone. Staff share an unspoken ethical commitment to support those on the margins, and they enact this commitment from the front desk to the examining room through the sacred practices of bearing witness and beholding each person in their fullness.
Recognizing the generally high religiosity of this patient population, and our patients’ disproportionate degree of suffering, an interdisciplinary team recently piloted the addition of a part-time chaplain at this clinic. Following the findings of our initial needs assessment study, we collaborated to build a program of individual and group spiritual care for both patients and staff, with a focus on grief support following traumatic loss. Now, the sacred more clearly permeates our days, as exam rooms and nursing stations and hallways and Zoom gatherings become “thin places” where the holy breaks through. Our chaplain works especially to create safe spaces of shared vulnerability, receiving stories from the abyss of loss and honoring them as sacred testimony.
This panel discussion will provide medical, social work, and chaplain perspectives on what “sacred space” can look like in the modern healthcare context. We will address themes such as:
•The theo-ethical commitments that underlie this clinical practice, and how each of us lives into these commitments in our particular vocational roles;
•How we design and lead programs such as staff Remembrance Huddles and patient Grief & Spirituality groups in such a way as to provide nourishing spiritual care for people of all faiths and worldviews;
and •How we perceive and negotiate the boundaries and tensions between secular and sacred space in order to affirm and make room for both.
Recognizing the generally high religiosity of this patient population, and our patients’ disproportionate degree of suffering, an interdisciplinary team recently piloted the addition of a part-time chaplain at this clinic. Following the findings of our initial needs assessment study, we collaborated to build a program of individual and group spiritual care for both patients and staff, with a focus on grief support following traumatic loss. Now, the sacred more clearly permeates our days, as exam rooms and nursing stations and hallways and Zoom gatherings become “thin places” where the holy breaks through. Our chaplain works especially to create safe spaces of shared vulnerability, receiving stories from the abyss of loss and honoring them as sacred testimony.
This panel discussion will provide medical, social work, and chaplain perspectives on what “sacred space” can look like in the modern healthcare context. We will address themes such as:
•The theo-ethical commitments that underlie this clinical practice, and how each of us lives into these commitments in our particular vocational roles;
•How we design and lead programs such as staff Remembrance Huddles and patient Grief & Spirituality groups in such a way as to provide nourishing spiritual care for people of all faiths and worldviews;
and •How we perceive and negotiate the boundaries and tensions between secular and sacred space in order to affirm and make room for both.