Empathy and Innovation Summit: Reducing Compassion Fatigue Using Spiritual Texts [Podcast]

Linda S. Golding

[2014 Cleveland Clinic Patient Experience Speaker Series] In today’s interview, we spoke with Chaplain Linda S. Golding of New York-Presbyterian Hospital as a preview of her upcoming presentation at the 5^th Annual Patient Experience Summit in May. Her talk is titled, Reducing Compassion Fatigue and Building Cultural Competence Using Texts.

Following a 30-year career in the classical music business, Linda Golding turned to helping people through clinical pastoral education. Her presentation at the upcoming Cleveland Clinic Patient Experience Summit is about a way to help people and manage compassion fatigue with staff in the hospital.

“One of the tools that I employed in this study was a set of spiritual texts that open us up to the fullest experience of who we are as human beings,” Linda told us. “And what we learned is that a certain amount of compassion fatigue can be reduced in the process of learning about another person’s spiritual concerns or needs.”

Here are some additional highlights of our conversation about her upcoming talk:

What’s surprising about this idea…

“I think that the people attending the presentation may be surprised by their own responses to the texts. What we found in the study was that each person was concerned about what the other person might understand the texts their own spiritual traditions. What we learned is that our own biases and prejudices about ourselves can impact our care and concern of someone else.

A take-home idea that you can use…

“I think the most important way to look at compassion fatigue is to try to increase resilience, and to try to “fill the tank” of how we are in the world. One of the ways to do that is to spend time learning about the other person.”

For more about these and other insightful ideas, listen to our recorded conversation now.

LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST

• Linda Golding, Chaplain, New York-Presbyterian Hospital
• 2014 Cleveland Clinic Patient Experience Empathy + Innovation Summit
• Title: Reducing Compassion Fatigue and Building Cultural Competence Using Texts [8:00]

Individuals who are attending the Patient Experience Summit will want to attend Linda Golding’s presentation in the morning of Wednesday, May 21^st.

ADDITIONAL INTERVIEWS in our continuing educational series are available on this Healthcare Success page.

AND FOR INFORMATION ABOUT the Cleveland Clinic 5th Annual Patient Experience: Empathy + Innovation Summit, click through to this page.

# # #

Linda S. Golding, MA, BCC has been a staff chaplain at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center since 2010. Her current areas of interest include spirituality and chronic pain; bio-ethics; and the intersection of patient-family-staff inpatient care. Her areas of coverage include neurology, outpatient infusion, and transplant units. Chaplain Golding holds a Masters in Jewish Studies and the Certificate of Pastoral Care and Counseling from Jewish Theological Seminary.

Healthcare Success is pleased to be a Supporting Partner for the world-class patient experience conference at the Cleveland Convention Center, May 18 -21, 2014.