In an effort to renew the spirits of its healers and other staff, Central Maine Medical Center offers a program on spirituality, aptly called RENEW. This program gives each participant a chance to look at their own values and own sense of spirituality so that when they are working with patients and families they can bring more sensitivity to the hard questions about life challenges. It helps staff to spend time in learning to improve their ability to relate to the various beliefs and values of their patients, visitors, and fellow staff. It offers the opportunity to re-invigorate staff's attraction to the health care field.
On the first morning of the four-day program, participants look at their values related to spirituality, including what that concept has meant to others in various cultures and what it means to participants personally. Participants also take a personality test to learn more about how they perceive and make decisions and how others perceive and make decisions.
Participants work with mentors who facilitate discussion and self-reflection and help with the ongoing clarification between spirituality and religion.
The program is a total of four days over a two-week period--two days in a row and then a week off for continued reflection and application before the last two days. Then each participant and his or her mentor group continue to meet together for six hours over three months to continue the work. At the end of three months the whole group comes together for a celebration to discuss what the process has meant, how the teaching have been applied in work with patients and families and with participants' work teams.