When Chaplain Walter Bryen walks into a patient room at Stanford Medicine Children’s Hospital (SMCH), he might hand a rosary to a devout grandmother, then turn to her grandchild — who believes in nothing at all — and help them feel connected to something larger than themselves. The chaplain’s role, Bryen wrote to The Daily, “is to be present with all the people in the family and affirm and acknowledge their faith or their no faith,” whether the divide runs between a devout grandparent and a secular teenager, or between a Muslim parent and a Christian one, as Bryen sees often.
Father Randy Valenton, another chaplain at SMCH and a Roman Catholic priest, describes the role as a bridge. “If the child and the parents do not see eye-to-eye on faith, I do not take sides. I respect them both,” he wrote to The Daily. “I connect the child’s inner peace with the parents’ deep traditions.”
Moments like these are the heart of spiritual care at SMCH. The chaplains’ approach — to meet patients and families exactly where they are — is now built into the hospital itself. Located on the first floor between the hospital’s West building and new Main building, the Sanctuary serves as “a dedicated space for serenity and reflection, and a refuge for patients, families and staff,” said Chaplain Paul Andrews, manager of Spiritual Care Services at SMCH…