Restoring the Healer

Drawing on his extensive experience as a hospital chaplain, William Dorman provides a compassionate and instructive guide to spiritual self-care for healthcare professionals in danger of physical and emotional burnout. Healthcare systems around the world are being cut to the bone, putting more pressure on professionals subject to increasing bureaucratic procedures that can crowd out the healer. The twelve chapters contains clinical stories from which various inferences drawn, along with prayers, meditations and reflections expressed in a universal language. People working in hospital inevitably come across tragic and sometimes avoidable situations that shake them to the core. It is tempting to depersonalise, but this route is not recommended by Dorman. Rather, people are encouraged to practise self-care, find balance, contend with limits and possibilities, express encouragement, compassion and kindness, and rediscover their passion; all this in the face of suffering and death. The final chapter encourages an attitude of gratitude as a basic spiritual disposition and contains a beautiful story about a surgeon expressing his gratitude for his team even in the face of apparent failure. The book can be highly recommended to anyone in the business of caring for others.