Hospice Workers Find Peace and Meaning

Michael Ollove writes in the Washington Post writes about hospice workers who find peace and meaning in their work.

It is hard to think of another profession with such constant exposure to dying. Yet, as intense and exhausting as hospice care is, you seldom hear any of the Western Reserve’s doctors, nurses, aides, social workers and bereavement counselors describe the job as grim, sad or dispiriting. Instead, they tend to portray the work as deeply fulfilling, gratifying and, perhaps most counterintuitively, life-affirming. And in working in the presence of imminent death, they all say they have witnessed sights that defy expectation or explanation.

“We see God working here all the time,” said Dee Metzger, 68, a hospice nurse in the Medina Inpatient Hospice Care Center southwest of Cleveland. “All the time.”

The annual turnover rate among employees at Western Reserve is a surprisingly low 12 percent, according to Judy Bartel, the organization’s chief clinical officer. To retain employees, the hospice offers them many outlets to combat burnout and what is called “compassion fatigue.”

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The hospice caregivers gauge their performance by how they usher their patients to their end. “The most we can do is provide opportunity for our patients to have the best deaths possible for them,” said Dieter, 62, medical director of Western Reserve’s David Simpson Hospice House. “While everyone else is running away from it, we in end-of-life are rushing forward, saying, ‘We know what you’re going through. We want to help.’ ”