Office Hours Air: 4. Bruce Feldstein, "Death is not a failure of life"

The Stanford Daily Podcast

After working as an emergency medicine physician for 19 years, including here at Stanford, Dr. Bruce Feldstein suffered an injury that made it impossible for him to continue. With the encouragement of other medical professionals, he began to consider, and then pursue, chaplaincy. Two decades later, Feldstein has served as a hospital chaplain longer than he worked as a physician.

In this interview, conducted a few weeks before his seventieth birthday, Feldstein discusses spiritual care in the hospital setting and then reflects on his own mortality. He also describes his transition from physician to spiritual care provider and shares stories from the bedside of patients past and present.

Feldstein’s sense of awe, which he describes throughout the show, is rooted in his daily experience accompanying people in intense moments of pain, beauty, and meaning. In his work as a chaplain Feldstein witnesses the full range of human life on a daily basis: from the first breaths of newborns to the final words of the dying.

Office Hours Air is a new Daily podcast and radio program. The show, created and hosted by Noah Sveiven, features guests in conversation about their work and the experiences in their lives that drew them to that work. Sveiven hopes the program will be of interest to anyone interested in exploring new ideas and ways of thinking, especially undergraduates discerning their callings. Office Hours Air is produced weekly and available online on all major podcast platforms. A one-hour version of each show is also broadcast in the Bay Area on KZSU Stanford Radio 90.1 FM, Thursday mornings from 10am to 11am. Office Hours Air is produced by Noah Sveiven and Ellen Yang.