The Laying on of Hands

I want you to reach out and touch someone today. And, I want that someone to be one (or more) of your patients. As a young ER nurse I was fortunate to work with a wise young physician who was a proponent of, as he termed it, the laying on of hands. He was a big believer in the therapeutic effects of human touch. He enjoyed demonstrating the effectiveness of a physical connection between patient and caregiver and he encouraged all the ER staff to follow his lead in making those connections.

He would explain how to unobtrusively initiate contact and, then, when an occasion presented itself, he would take us individually into a patient’s treatment room and strut his stuff. The level of patient anxiety is likely higher in the ER than in most other areas of the hospital, so there were plenty of opportunities to see immediate and frequent results. Standing by the bed, he would hold a hand or place his hand on a shoulder or even on a lower leg or foot as he spoke to the patient. The calming effects were remarkable.

My experience in that ER was brought to mind by a recent e-mail sent to me by my friend, Doug, who is a big deal in the sport of rock climbing. Doug related the story of two of his climbing buddies who took a break from the rocks for a day of skiing. In their quest to ski the most pristine snow, they went out of bounds to do so and touched off an avalanche that slammed one of them into a tree, snapping his humerus and leaving him bruised and battered.

Because they were skiing a roped-off area, summoning help would’ve resulted in the revocation of their season’s ski passes, so the uninjured skier shoulder-carried his roughed-up friend down and out of the gully and to their VW van for the trip to the ER. En route, they were sideswiped hard by a semi that slid into their lane on an icy curve, turning both skiers into patients.

Doug got word of the escapade gone bad and went to the ER to check on his friends. He found the friend-toting driver of the VW in good shape so went to look for the guy with the broken arm.

“He was all wrapped in blankets, but shivering so violently he banged the steel table,” Doug wrote. “I walked in and took his hand. Suddenly the color returned to his face and the shaking stopped. I’ve never seen such a dramatic leap out of shock. And all it took was lending a friendly hand.”

These days, the laying on of hands has a new, more sophisticated name: healing touch therapy. Whatever we call it, it can work wonders. Go forth and touch.