Mayo Clinic chaplains offer spiritual care, provide end-of-life support, and lead worship services and blessings for new spaces and equipment. Learn about some recent successes, what they look for in a new team member, and what they'd call themselves if they were a band.

---

Mayo Clinic is a team of teams — many, many teams. So many that it's impossible to know what each of them does. This column will put that question to teams throughout Mayo, giving them a chance to share how they contribute to patient care and support colleagues throughout the organization.

---

When Hannah Morales Olson joined Mayo Clinic, it was by choice, not chance.

"When I was a child I had a life-changing surgery at Mayo Clinic, so I knew firsthand the compassion and excellence that is abundant here," says Morales Olson, supervisor of Spiritual Care staff chaplains in Rochester.

She returned to Mayo as an adult during her Clinical Pastoral Education Residency.

"I attended the Spiritual Care Research Literacy Day hosted by the Department of Spiritual Care here at Mayo," Morales Olson says. "That day really drew me to this department. It was exciting to see the ways that education, research and practice (the three shields!) came together."

We are here to support staff as well as patients. As Dr. William Worrall Mayo said, 'No one is big enough to be independent of others.'

Hannah Morales Olson

Four years into her role, Morales Olson remains inspired by the opportunity to grow.

"One facet of my work that continues to inspire my vocation is the promise of learning something new each day," she says. "It's truly a joy to come to work knowing that I am going to learn something new from the patients, families and colleagues who I meet along the way."

And those colleagues? They — and the rest of the staff at Mayo Clinic — are a big part of what keeps her at Mayo Clinic.

"I work with a phenomenal team of spiritual care providers who are compassionate and who keep me laughing every day," says Morales Olson. "I am inspired by and admire the ingenuity, innovation and excellence that is so present among my team.

"We are here to support staff as well as patients. As Dr. William Worrall Mayo said, 'No one is big enough to be independent of others.'"

The News Center team asked Morales Olson to answer questions about her job and her team.

Tell us about your team. What is it your team does?

As professional spiritual care providers we empower, support and engage individuals as an integrated part of their healthcare team. We support people's engagement with their faith, with their spiritual practices, and with their hopes for their well-being. We also come alongside individuals as they connect with and draw upon their values and beliefs. This is especially important in times of transition and vulnerability.

Our goal is to cultivate an environment of compassionate care, meeting spiritual needs everywhere we go.

Hannah Morales Olson

Our team collaborates well with one another. We coordinate patient needs and requests, share an on-call calendar, and support one another in our clinical work. We also engage in a variety of education and research presentations. Our director, BJ Larson, and our spirituality research coordinator, Jacek Soroka, Ph.D., presented at the 2024 World Congress on Moral Injury, Trauma, Spirituality and Healing, hosted by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University.

We are proud that Mayo Clinic has recently added academic rank for Spiritual Care, the first in the country.  We continue to celebrate our colleagues as they are recognized for their contributions as mentors, scholars and researchers. Our staff and Clinical Pastoral Education residents are engaged in research studies, including poster presentations and publications.

Clinical Pastoral Education interns and residents are an important part of our team. Certified educators within the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences work directly with the spiritual care practitioners-in-training in individual and group supervisory education. Staff chaplains provide guidance as clinical preceptors, and the students engage in clinical care and on-call work as part of their program learning requirements.

How do you spend most of your day?

Here in Rochester we have offices on both the Saint Marys and Methodist campuses, as well as hospice chaplains throughout the Southeast Minnesota geographical area. A typical day-to-day schedule for the chaplains on the Rochester campuses involves starting our morning together with a huddle where we receive a report from our night chaplain and share a reflection together. From there, we assure good handoffs in attending to clinical patient needs such as consults or referrals for spiritual care support.

Part of our team's day may include preparation for worship services that are prepared and led by staff chaplains or Clinical Pastoral Education students. We offer a daily Mass led by our Catholic priest chaplains and a Sunday morning interdenominational worship service. These services are available via Mayo TV and can be viewed in patient rooms.

We also provide bedside rituals or services in support of patient needs, such as offering spirituality groups in Generose on our behavioral healthcare floors or a blessing requested for a stem cell transplant.

We respond to emergent events and provide end-of-life support. It is an important part of our work to provide peace and comfort throughout the end-of-life process as we come alongside patients, their loved ones and staff.

Along with responding to patient needs for emotional and spiritual support, we provide staff support. You may be familiar with a few of our staff-support offerings if you've participated in a Tea for the Soul, Schwartz Rounds, memorial service or a Support Our Staff experience.

Coordinating blessings for new places and spaces throughout our Mayo Clinic campuses also falls within our job description. We have participated in blessings for new buildings, construction groundbreakings and emergency transportation vehicles. Recently, we celebrated the blessing of the new Saint Marys canopy, which welcomes visitors to our west entrance.

What might surprise people about the work your team does?

When people think about chaplains, they may think we only provide support at times of emergency or death. In fact, we provide consistent and daily emotional support to patients, families and staff. We are engaged in patient care across the clinical spectrum, and we work together with our interdisciplinary colleagues to make sure that spiritual needs are addressed and affirmed.

We are a diverse team of people with a range of backgrounds and areas of expertise who are here to support people in times of vulnerability and grief, and we are here to be present at times of happiness and joy, too.

Everyone at Mayo contributes to caring for patients. How does your team do that?

Spiritual care chaplains provide care for patients in so many ways! We share support and care directly at the bedside and in outpatient settings, including both in-person and virtual care. We are also integrated members of the interdisciplinary teams in our assigned clinic areas. Our goal is to cultivate an environment of compassionate care, meeting spiritual needs everywhere we go.

You're going to hire a new team member. Describe your ideal candidate.

Someone approachable and caring, who has a healthy sense of curiosity and is excited to learn more about themselves and others. We care for patients from a diversity of backgrounds, including religious and nonreligious, so an eagerness to learn and an approach of listening to understand is a definite plus. 

We provide faith-specific staff chaplaincy for religious needs. We are ACPE-educated spiritual care specialists proficient in serving a variety of spiritual needs, especially in accompanying patients, families and staff in the midst of suffering life's challenges.

What is a recent team success that you're proud of?

I have to share a few.

We have been invited by more departments to share our work and collaborate in addressing patient, family and staff care needs. We've updated key documents like the Rochester Spiritual Care Department and Sacred Spaces and Spiritual Care brochures, as well as the peace booklet (a booklet with comforting prayers and scripture) and other patient support resources.    

We like to share humor and enjoy having fun together. We are preparing for our third Annual Spiritual Care Department Bake-Off. As you can see in the picture, the event has been a fun time for us to connect as a department, sample a variety of delicious baked goods, and engage in some healthy competition.

The holy month of Ramadan, one of the holiest months for Muslims, is characterized by prayer, fasting and reflection. Fasting is broken at sundown each day, often with a family or community meal. This year our department, in collaboration with Food Services and the Arab MERG, hosted two iftar meals during Ramadan, which provided wonderful opportunities for Mayo colleagues to gather with each other and share a meal.

If your team was a band, what would it be called?

We have a few great names that we came up with: The Easy Listeners, Soulful Serenity, and Divine Resonance. Fun fact: one of our team members plugged this question into Chat GPT and that's how we created the last two names!

If you had to describe your team's work in six words, what would your six-word story be?

Cultivating compassionate care everywhere we go.