Program helps health care workers share feelings

Host Amber Smith: Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York invites you to be "The Informed Patient," with the podcast that features experts from Central New York's only academic medical center. I'm your host, Amber Smith. The Schwartz Rounds is a program that allows health care givers to gather regularly to share their thoughts and feelings about their work lives. Today I am talking about this program with Zeynab Mancini, a chaplain who coordinates the Schwartz rounds at Upstate. Welcome to "The Informed Patient," Chaplain Mancini.

Zeynab Mancini: Thank you.

The Schwartz Rounds comes from the Schwartz Center for Compassionate health care, which is a national nonprofit that formed 30 years ago in 1995. Can you tell us about its mission or why it was created?

I would like to start this with quote from Ken Schwartz, who started the Schwartz Rounds at Schwartz Center. He said, "this act of kindness, the simple human touch from my caregivers have made the unbearable, bearable."

Zeynab Mancini: The Schwartz Rounds is dedicated to human connection in the heart of health care. And today's health care environment, crowded with competing priorities, and the human connection is too easily overlooked. And caregivers, burned out. Patients and families are fearful and suffering. Through innovative programs, education, advocacy, and compassion rounds that we are having through Schwartz Center is working to support caregivers, health care leaders, and others to bring compassion to every health care experience.

So Schwartz Center, as you said, created by Ken Schwartz, and his story is very touching. And he started it after his own experience with health care in 1995. And there is lots of hospitals involved with Schwartz Center. In United States, more than 400 hospitals are members of the Schwartz Center. And U.K. and Ireland has more than 280. And Australia, Canada and New Zealand also has Schwartz Rounds, are members of the Schwartz centers and doing the Schwartz rounds at their hospitals.

Host Amber Smith: So it's gone international.

Zeynab Mancini: Yes.

Host Amber Smith: So all from this man who was a patient who had his own health care crisis and saw how important it was to have health care workers who were compassionate.

Zeynab Mancini: Yes.

Host Amber Smith: Well, can you tell us how Schwartz Rounds works at Upstate? Who participates?

Zeynab Mancini: We started Schwartz Rounds 11 years ago. Every health care worker, regardless they are bedside caregiver or not, they are able to participate. They have accessibility to Schwartz Rounds. And we are from administrative to the bedside caregiver, environmental services, supply chain, physical plant, human resources even. We are having participants from them too. Like everyone who are health care worker have access to the Schwartz Rounds at Upstate.

Host Amber Smith: And we have a planning committee. We have palliative care doctor, we have ED (emergency department) doctor, we have wellness chief, we have psychiatrist, we have case manager, nursing directors, we have social workers, we have physical plant, environmental services and hospitalist and supply chain in my planning committee. We are meeting every few months, planning for Schwartz Rounds and bringing up topics and defining who will be good panelists for the topics, and then we are setting the dates. What did you do during the COVID pandemic? Did Schwartz Rounds still take place?

Zeynab Mancini: Yes, Schwartz Rounds did not stop providing compassionate support and care to the health care givers, especially during the pandemic. There was a lot of need. But we did it online and we, again, had topics. And also it is not only topics. Sometimes it is difficult cases that involves many interdisciplinary teams and that impact them emotionally and their experience and their practice. Sometimes we are bringing up the cases. Sometimes we are bringing up just topics relating to health care workers experience.

Host Amber Smith: This is Upstate's "The Informed Patient" podcast. I'm your host Amber Smith. I'm talking with chaplain Zeynab Mancini about a program called Schwartz Rounds that gives health care workers a safe place to share their feelings about their work lives.

What is the goal of Schwartz Rounds? When you gather all of these health care workers from a variety of roles in the hospital, what are you hoping to achieve when they all come together?

Zeynab Mancini: For us at Upstate, our goal to create the safe space for staff to share their feelings and safe spa space for them to be vulnerable, to feel connected and to gain strengths, knowing that there are others who went through similar difficulties and experiences and challenges, and that there are similar stories that empower them and make them connected and make them to feel more motivated what they are doing humanly in their caregiving.

We are not seeking for problem solving or fixing what is going wrong. We are mostly focusing on, and we are bringing people to focus on, to process their feelings, to be vulnerable, to just discuss how humanly they can approach to these difficult cases together and empower each other.

Host Amber Smith: Are people allowed to come and just listen?

Zeynab Mancini: Yes. As long as they are staff of Upstate, they are allowed to come and listen. We are also opening it -- after panelists share their stories -- we are opening to audience to kind of, to resonate with their feelings, with their stories, with the stories of the panelists too, and share something from themselves. And it is also safe space for audience that they can share, process their feelings, and be vulnerable.

Host Amber Smith: Can you give us some examples of the themes or the topics that you've addressed?

Zeynab Mancini: I just picked a few topics from the past year that I have been coordinating and there is topics that we did: "When Helpers Need Help, the View of Other Side of the Bed," then "Taking Off the Cape, From Hero to Human," or "Baptized by Fire, When There is No Playbook," and "Healing the Healer, Balancing and Navigating Self Care Needs of the Patient Care. And, we had also "The Balancing Act, Carrying Joy and Grief in our Care, specially coordinated for the holiday season last year.

Host Amber Smith: So the way the titles are, it makes me think, you're describing jobs that are potentially high stress. But like you said, with joy, but also with some grief. Are you trying to help people learn how to process a stressful job?

Zeynab Mancini: We are trying to help them to reduce the stress while they're sharing and they're processing their stressful work, their feelings and the impact that they are getting from difficult cases, difficult encounters, difficult illnesses.

Host Amber Smith: How do you think programs like the Schwartz Rounds improve health care for patients?

Zeynab Mancini: Schwartz Rounds improve health care for patients by fostering more compassionate understanding and emotionally resilient health care workers. And then, these rounds provide safe space for caregivers to share their experiences and reflect on the emotional impact of their work, and then gain insight of their colleagues.

And addressing these emotional strain helps health care workers, providers, and professionals feel supported and emotionally balanced. And then they can provide attentive, compassionate, and improving overall patient care. And also by encouraging reflection on the emotional and ethical challenges of the patient care through storytelling and shared experience.

Schwartz Rounds also helps clinicians and health care workers to connect with the human side of the medicine and leading to more empathetic and more patient-centered care. These rounds brings together staff from different disciplines and strengthening understanding among health care professionals.

Host Amber Smith: Well, chaplain Mancini, thank you for making time to tell us about Schwartz Rounds.

Zeynab Mancini: Thank you very much for having me.

Host Amber Smith: My guest has been Zeynab Mancini, a chaplain at Upstate who coordinates the Schwartz Rounds. "The Informed Patient" is a podcast covering health, science and medicine, brought to you by Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and produced by Jim Howe, with sound engineering by Bill Broeckel and graphic design by Dan Cameron. Find our archive of previous episodes at upstate.edu/informed. If you enjoyed this episode, please invite a friend to listen. You can also rate and review "The Informed Patient" podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you tune in. This is your host, Amber Smith, thanking you for listening.