Curatio helps health care professionals integrate faith with care

Hospice nurse Meggie Humphrey cares for patients in nursing homes, private homes and assisted living. An admissions nurse, she is first to meet with a patient and family to discuss hospice care.

During the pandemic, she screens patients for any COVID-19 symptoms or potential exposure to determine her specific personal protective equipment, which she calls her “armor of love.” Before a visit, she asks the Holy Spirit to guide her words.

As she has done for years before the pandemic, Humphrey, 30, a parishioner of Our Lady of the Lake in Mound, regularly connects with the Curatio apostolate for health care professionals as a means to “rest and refill,” she said, and persevere. She does so through prayer and eucharistic adoration, community and silent retreats.

“Just having that place to reach out to and say, ‘What do you guys think of this?’” has been helpful, she said. She appreciates the joyful nature of her Curatio peers.

Curatio, started 20 years ago by registered nurse Dianne Johnson, helps multidisciplinary health care professionals integrate their faith with their professional responsibilities. Johnson said more than 300 people have signed up for its newsletter, and attendance varies by event. A parishioner of St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony, Johnson estimates 35-40 attended Lenten half-day retreats, 20-25 participated in pre-COVID-19 “Curatio on Caffeine” evening get-togethers and an average of 100-150 were at World Day of the Sick events.

Johnson, now retired, nearly quit nursing years ago from burnout. After soul-searching and counseling, she realized what she needed was healing: “curatio” is Latin for “healing.”

Aside from moving events online, the pandemic has not changed the group’s ministry, Johnson said. “(It) simply reinforces our mission and what we have been attempting to do all along — strengthen Catholics in health care to be what God called us to be in health care: saints.”

Curatio’s resources typically include annual Lenten and fall retreats, faith formation, liturgical celebrations, coffeehouse presentations, a monthly newsletter, monthly adoration and benedictions, First Friday Mass and the Curatio Prayer Responders (CPR) team that prays for intentions with Holy Hours, prayers and rosaries.

During the pandemic, Curatio members have relied on Curatio, including its CPR team, for support, Johnson said, noting that members’ “own personal prayer and self-care” have been instrumental, too.

Curatio CPR requests have grown during the pandemic — from two or three in nine months pre-COVID, to up to multiple calls a day. A new team of 12 prays and makes Holy Hours for intentions. In addition, four priests say monthly Masses for the intentions.

“The extended, long hours and the long stretch of workdays are exhausting on all levels — physical, emotional and spiritual,” she said. The toll indicates members’ need for retreats, she noted.

Beyond the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Curatio has active groups in Rochester and Winona, and a growing group in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Family medicine physician Dr. Kimberly Bigelow practices at a Fairview clinic in Hibbing, but on multiple occasions has driven three hours to attend a Curatio retreat.

“(They) are always … so powerful,” she said, “like the booster shot I need to … take that mission back when we get worn down, … worn out from working on the battlefield.”

Bigelow has experienced extra stress from the pandemic, including not being able to take care of patients in the way she wanted to early on when in-person clinic visits were suspended. When they resumed, some patients were “very, very sick and had complex medical problems because they hadn’t seen their physician for weeks, a month or more,” she said.

Nurse practitioner Teresa Tawil describes herself as “basically, a walk-in clinic” in her work as a primary care provider for patients in assisted living. Some have COVID, but others may need cortisone injections, prescriptions, orders for home care or help managing diabetes.

Changes in care delivery are more in “the little things” for Tawil. Wearing personal protective equipment causes a higher level of separation between her and the patient, she said, with physical touches and time limited. With masks, it’s difficult to see a patient’s smile or grimace.

Her challenge is still to create a positive connection with the patient, despite the limitations. The depth of clinicians’ interaction with patients greatly impacts healing and well-being, said Tawil, a parishioner of St. Raphael in Crystal who also serves patients in long-term care facilities. “The efforts bounce back, as love does, and lift the clinician as well,” she said.

“We bring Christ to the patient and we see Christ in the patient,” Tawil added. “Everything we do is to glorify and serve God.”