Motto

In – the regularly occurring – case that the professional does not immediately know what to do, they should start to work relationally. When new ground has to be broken, professionals would do well to think collectively about what their practice is about, what it is ultimately aimed at.

Luke works as a custodian in a major teaching hospital. One time, he cleaned a comatose young patient's room. The patient's father, who had been keeping a vigil for months, had gone out to smoke a cigarette and hadn't seen Luke cleaning the room. When he came back he snapped at Luke and accused him of not cleaning the room. At first, Luke got defensive, and was going to argue with him, but then he just cleaned the room again. When asked why he did it again, Luke explained: ‘Yeah, I cleaned it so that he could see me cleaning it … I can understand how he could be. It was like six months that his son was here. He’d be a little frustrated, and so I cleaned it again.’ When asked to talk about his job, Luke related stories that told the researchers that his ‘official’ duties were only one part of his real job. Another, central, part of his job was to make the patients and their families feel comfortable, to cheer them up when they were down, to encourage them and divert them from their pain, to give them a willing ear if they felt like talking. Luke aimed to do something different from mere custodial work.