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Scott Webb: Today, I'm joined by Chris Peterson and Colly Tettelbach, both are chaplains with SVMHS, and they're here today to tell us how they help patients, families, and the medical staff through the good times and the bad.

This is Ask the Experts, a podcast from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. I want to thank you both for your time today. It's interesting for me to have two chaplains on, right? I normally don't even have one chaplain on. But today, I have two chaplains on. So this is sort of a doubling down, if you will. So this is going to be a lot of fun and learn more about what you folks do, how you help people and so on. So, Chris, as we get rolling here, what is the role of a chaplain at a hospital or health system?

Chris Peterson: Yeah. We're here to support patients, not only patients, but their families, staff too at the hospital. We're here to come alongside and to provide a sense of purpose, help them reconnect and sometimes come alongside patients that are in crisis or families that are in crisis.

Colly Tettelbach: And I want to interject a plug for spiritual health. We're very much aware of physical health and emotional health, but spiritual health has a major role to play not only in our emotional health, but also in our physical health. So I just wanted to let you know that we address the spiritual health side of things.

Scott Webb: Colly, let's just talk a little bit about the duties and responsibilities. What is a typical day like for Colly or Chris?

Colly Tettelbach: We're the first line when there's any kind of a crisis intervention. We work alongside the social workers very often. We do grief and bereavement counseling, both pre-death and after a death has occurred or after there's been a change. We assist with the transitions that occur when a patient is ill, the changes that take place as we age. We provide family support. We're certainly there for staff crises as well. Both Chris and I are very actively involved in our care for the caregiver program and in their SWOT reports as well. We do pre and post-surgical counseling. We do end-of-life care. We assist patients when they're trying to do their advanced healthcare directives and what we call their physician's order for life-sustaining treatment. We also do a lot of education. Both Chris and I have been very much involved in providing educational fora for the various areas of our hospital. We can do bereavement groups and we are often asked to be patient advocates to go between the family and the patient or the patient and the staff. And we work very closely with hospital staff.

Scott Webb: Yeah, I'm sure you do. And Chris, I think one of the things that must be challenging for you both in your roles there, is that there's so many different forms of religion and so on. So wondering, you yourselves as chaplains, are you associated with a particular or a certain religious group? Or every day is sort of non-denominational in a way?

Chris Peterson: I think we're both nondenominational chaplains. I did work in a church here for quite a long season. But we actually see all patients, whether they have actually a faith background or not, because everyone has a spirit, everyone is made in the image of God. And so, culture of honor is a big part of what we do. And yeah, we come alongside anyone in crisis that just needs support and needs encouragement for us to come alongside.

Colly Tettelbach: Everybody is spiritual. They may not recognize it, they may not understand it, and we make a big difference between spirituality and religion, but our spiritual needs are universal. We all need meaning in our life. We all need a sense of purpose. We all need a sense of hope. We all need a sense of belonging. And we all need some sense of something beyond ourselves. And those are what the spiritual needs are, and that's what we address.

Scott Webb: Yeah, I'm just thinking about the times either that I've been in the hospital or family members, or when my grandfather was ill before he passed away. You know, it wasn't about a particular religion or anything, it was just having someone to talk to, someone whose role, whose job it was was to try to help me and make me and my family feel better. And I'm sure that brings smiles to your faces every day, I'm sure, despite trauma and tragedy, that you're helping folks.

Chris Peterson: Yeah. We do come alongside. And I do in the hospital, in the ER, come alongside a lot people whose family, loved ones are dying or have died. And if I may, just share a short story, I was in a different facility and in a subacute unit where there wasn't much brain activity. I knew this patient. She was a woman who had been a pastor in Africa, I think it was Rwanda. And I was there and I didn't know what she could hear, but I led to pray for her. As I prayed for her, streams of tears started falling down her face. And I shared that later with a doctor and he goes, "Really?" because there wasn't much brain activity. But what that showed me is that our spirit can catch things that our mind can't. And she was catching something when I was ministering to her. And so ever since then, I encourage families when we around the bedside and the patient is actively dying, they're not able to speak, to continue to speak to them and let them know they love them, and to share with them and to touch them because even if they can't respond, they don't know really what they're able to receive in their spirit.

Scott Webb: I wish we had so much more time today, but I do have a couple last questions for you. I I want to know if you guys perform weddings or baptisms in the hospital?

Chris Peterson: Yeah, I've performed weddings. I'm a licensed minister. I've had a couple different patients, one that was on a local news station, fourth stage cancer, and a love story and they wanted to get married, and so we performed. Staff came up to the plate and provided cake and wedding rings and different things and we were able to perform the ceremony right in the hospital.

There's one that I'll never forget, also another wedding. This is a patient that I visited and when I was asked if I could pray for him, I was praying for him and I really felt that I was supposed to let him know that the Lord sees him, God sees him as his beloved son. Sounds really simple, but as I shared that with him, he said, "It's interesting you say that because I was like the black sheep of my family." And later on, his significant other told me about his abuse and different things from his dad. And it ended up there that his significant other, they weren't married. He had liver disease, kidney disease. His kidney disease ended up being totally transformed, which the doctor said was miraculous, but his liver didn't heal up. But we were able to perform a wedding, again in the hospital room, and he didn't have a ring, so I let him use my wedding ring and it was beautiful. And then, later on found out that, you know, he eventually did go home to hospice. He died at home. But the wife told me that he was so at peace as he was at home and that he was dying, just before he died.

Scott Webb: You know, that brought a big smile to my face. And as I said, I wish we had more time together, but I'm going to give the last question to you, Colly. What's the best part about being a hospital chaplain?

Colly Tettelbach: As we go into the hospital setting, we can only go with God's guidance and God's love. And when I feel love for a patient that I don't even know, and I might even out on the street, not even lying, but there is such love that flows and just a connectedness and a presence and a joy, I am exactly where I should be doing exactly what I should be doing, that is such a satisfying thing.

Scott Webb: I'm sure that it is, and it's been such a pleasure to get to know both of you. And I have a better understanding of what you do there and how you help folks. Thank you both and you both stay well.

Colly Tettelbach: Oh, thank you. You too. God bless you.

Chris Peterson: Thank you, Scott. Have a great day. God bless you.

Scott Webb: And for a complete list of all of our podcasts, please visit svmh.com. And if you found this podcast to be helpful, please be sure to tell a friend, neighbor or family member. And subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and check out the entire podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is Ask the Experts from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.