Reflections from the Frontline of COVID-19: Chaplain Kaytlin Butler
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for chaplains has come to the forefront of public conversation, as evidenced by the stories and news coverage of their care and support of hospital staff, patients, families and people all across the nation and the world. During the initial months of shelter-in-place orders in the U.S., hotspots of the virus emerged in the North 
East, especially in New York City. As loss and grief mounted in New York and beyond, chaplains supported those bereaved and those who care for them.
In the following reflections, chaplains from Mount Sinai Health System in New York offer their stories and perspectives from the frontlines in the hopes of helping other spiritual care providers in cities that are now surging. If you have a story you’d like to share, let us know.
The following reflections were transcribed and compiled by Juliane Ding and have been edited and condensed for clarity. You can hear audio from this interview below. This post is one of a series, also including Rabbi Jo Hirschmann, Esther Maria Roman, Rachelle Zazzu, and Rabbi Rachel Van Thyn.
Advice for Frontline Spiritual Care Providers
- Encourage providers to sing to their dying or non-responsive patients. It’s oddly empowering particularly when they don’t know what else to do or say.
- Offer to write down the family’s last words/goodbyes/encouragement on a sticky note and tape it to a religious text/other item for non-responsive patients. Ask providers to read those words out loud to the patient when they go in the room while clustering care. Families appreciate knowing that the patient heard these words over and over again as they heal and/or die.
- Likewise, ask staff to adorn bodies with religious items as desired. Lots of comfort in knowing that someone died with their hand on a Qur’an or clasping a rosary.
- Use the patient chart. Look at people’s oxygen stats before calling. Be mindful that they maybe should not be talking too much. Take the lead in the conversation and utilize yes/no questions to assess what sort of intervention might be most meaningful to them.
Kaytlin Butler is a staff chaplain at Mount Sinai Hospital where she works as part of the inpatient hematology/oncology teams. She received her Master’s of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary and is an alumnus of the University of Georgia. Kaytlin is soon to be ordained as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church USA. Her work providing spiritual care during the COVID-19 pandemic has been featured in The New Yorker, Time Reports With Katie Couric, BBC World News Service, CNN, and The Interfaith Youth Corps.
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