Applause

The authors may not know it, but something akin to Schwartz Rounds were first established in the paediatric department of London's Royal Brompton Hospital in the mid-1980's. ¹ They were called 'staff support groups' and very often focused on one particular patient. I was invited by Consultant Paediatrician, John Warner, to research and find ways to remedy the stresses involved in caring for sick children and their parents.

There was a lot of anger about, and it soon became clear that this was masking much unresolved grief. Staff were naturally bereaved when young patients died (of cystic fibrosis or heart disease) sometimes abruptly, such as during surgery, but they also lost something when patients they had got to know well finally recovered and went home. I remember vividly some nurses at an early meeting saying they were not allowed to cry on the ward. ‘What do you do?’ I asked. One cried in the sluice room and another on the bus going home. A third waited until she was with her boyfriend; but, they all cried.

Although I was unable to formulate the research, and therefore did not publish results, I could write much more, descriptively, about the healing effects and other positive outcomes of these sessions, which were fully supported at the time by the Senior Nurse Tutor and Senior Social Worker. I learned a great deal too; and have gone on to write not only about self- care and compassion, as do these authors, but also about the wisdom of greater recognition of the spiritual dimension in health care generally, mental health care too, also in education and other important arenas of human endeavour. ^2,3

I therefore applaud the work reported, and advocate the widest possible introduction of Schwartz rounds in places of healing, including GP Surgeries, community mental health centres, and (why not?) social services departments. There are untold riches to be gained. As I wrote elsewhere (using a pen-name), illustrating the text in places with stories from the Brompton groups, emotional healing usually leads to personal growth, and does so in a way that is of benefit not only to the person concerned, but to all. ⁴