Collective soul: The spirituality of an interdisciplinary palliative care team

Abstract

This was the first known study that focused specifically on the exploration of a collective spirituality. The culture of palliative care seems to foster spiritual reflection among health care professionals both as individuals and as a whole. While spirituality was difficult to describe, it was a shared experience often tangibly present in the provision of care on all levels.

Symptom distress, interventions, and outcomes of intensive care unit cancer patients referred to a palliative care consult team

“…The intention of this process is to empower patients and their families to exercise their decision-making options and autonomy while balancing the benefits and risks of treatments with the goal of improved quality of the end of their life. [29][30][31][32][33][34][35] Norton et al conducted a prospective study in which 65 ICU patients received the usual ICU care and 126 patients received proactive palliative care. Those authors observed that the proactive palliative care interventions decreased significantly the ICU length of stay in high-risk patients (ICU admission after a current hospital stay of 10 days; age >80 years in the presence of 2 comorbidities; stage IV malignancy; status post cardiac arrest; or diagnosis of an intracerebral hemorrhage requiring MV) with no significant difference in the mortality rate or discharge disposition.…”

Interdisciplinary palliative care teams : insights and experiences of chaplain interns and social work interns.

“…A collective spirituality was identified and this related to wholeness, meaning, integrity, and personal journeying on the individual and the team level (Sinclair, Raffin, Pereira, & Guebert, 2006).…”

“…An existential approach and the model of death anxiety (Tomer & Eliason, 2005) Not only can the patient experience transcendence as they make meaning of the time that is left, the interdisciplinary palliative care team may also be inspired as they work with the dying. According to a qualitative study by Sinclair et al (2006), transcendence was reported by the interdisciplinary palliative care team members as a mystical experience of spirituality of connection to God, or the Universe. One of the most important roles of the interdisciplinary palliative care team in providing spiritual care is to honor and listen to the suffering of the dying (Sinclair et al, 2006).…”

“…According to a qualitative study by Sinclair et al (2006), transcendence was reported by the interdisciplinary palliative care team members as a mystical experience of spirituality of connection to God, or the Universe. One of the most important roles of the interdisciplinary palliative care team in providing spiritual care is to honor and listen to the suffering of the dying (Sinclair et al, 2006).…”

“…According to Sinclair et al, (2006) one of the most important roles of the interdisciplinary palliative care team in providing spiritual care is to honor and listen to the suffering of the dying.…”