Meet Rev. Johan Ostlund, M.Div, the new interfaith chaplain at Cheshire Medical Center.
Ostlund took over the role in June, following the retirement of longtime Rev. Winnie Skeates, MTS, earlier this year.
Ostlund has worked in spiritual care for a decade, with previous positions within the Dartmouth Health system. Interfaith chaplains provide spiritual and emotional support to patients, families and staff from diverse religious, spiritual and non-religious backgrounds.
“I feel incredibly privileged to get to meet patients right where they are,” Ostlund said, “without an agenda or need for them to be different.”
At Cheshire, Ostlund helps inpatient units and patients receiving outpatient infusions, as well as families and staff, in addition to providing end-of-life and crisis intervention. He is also responsible for overseeing the five other interfaith chaplains at Cheshire.
His work as an interfaith chaplain keeps him on his toes, as he doesn’t know who he will meet each day.
“I’m continuously amazed by how relationships of trust can be established with people who I’ve never met before and who are courageous enough to open up and share vulnerably about the challenges they are facing,” Ostlund said.
When meeting with people, he said his work goes beyond religious support or end-of-life care. Ostlund is trained to provide care that is attentive to the human experience, serving as a listening presence while helping people explore existential concerns, emotional distress, grief counseling and more.
His goal is to help people feel understood and find ways to cope with a hospitalization, new diagnosis or life change.
“My faith in humanity, in our capacity to build relationships and bridge across differences,” Ostlund said, “gets restored through the encounters I have.”
Cheshire Medical Center’s chaplains are available from 8 am to 4 pm, Monday through Thursday. Chaplains are also available on a 24-hour on-call basis for emergency situations. For more information, visit cheshiremed.org/patients-visitors/spiritual-care.