I had been in the hospital for four days when I asked the hospital chaplain to visit. I wasn’t sick—the patient was my 4-week-old son Moses, who was struggling to breathe with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). After spending sleepless, disorienting days and nights at his crib-side, I needed someone to talk to.
Family members had come, and they were great, but they didn’t understand the clinical language that defined our new existence. The doctors and nurses were polite and efficient, but focused on their jobs. A chaplain was someone whose job it was to help me, and, being a religion journalist, I knew I could ask for one.
You might think of a hospital chaplain only as a priest who delivers last rites when a person is dying. In fact, hospital chaplains, who have been around in the U.S. since the 1920s, are resources for all things religious, spiritual, and emotional.
Of course, if you are religiously observant, chaplains can offer you Communion, or light Shabbat candles, or find the right direction for prayer toward Mecca. But chaplains are not just for religious folks, they’re for everybody. That’s what Phil Brooks, manager of the pastoral care department at Inova Fairfax Hospital, where Moses and I stayed, told me when I called him.
“Being in the hospital can be very isolating,” he said. “A chaplain can pull the curtains back on that dark room and help you remember there is more to your life than being a patient.” Brooks explained that lots of times he finds himself simply sitting and listening: “I let them take the lead. I just try to communicate that I am a safe person to talk to, someone with no agenda except their well-being.”
Because many people don’t know about chaplaincy services, or hesitate to call on a chaplain even if one is available, the service is underused, Wendy Cadge, a Brandeis University sociologist who studies religion and health, told me.
Cadge coauthored a new study, out this month, showing that only one-half to two-thirds of hospitals offered chaplaincy services between 1980 and 2003; another study showed that only about 20% of patients see chaplains. “Chaplaincy services are not reimbursed by insurance, so if hospitals hire them, it comes out of their bottom line,” Cadge explained. Or they rely on voluntary efforts from local congregations.
What hospitals might be interested to know is that chaplains can bring a potentially high return on investment. According to a 2003 study from Press Ganey Associates, overall patient satisfaction is closely tied to how well those patients felt their “emotional/spiritual needs” were met during their hospital stay. While doctors and other staff might be able to fill some of those needs, chaplains are the professionals in this area.
When the chaplain arrived in Moses’ room, she was just what I needed: someone wearing normal clothes (not scrubs), who sat with me and asked about Moses, and about me, and said a little prayer with us. I am Muslim, and she was not, but it didn’t seem to matter. I found myself in tears, at last able to express emotions the hospital drama had somehow paralyzed.
So if you find yourself as a hospital patient or, like me, as a caregiver, why not ask the nurse if the chaplain can drop in on you? A little human contact might do you good—no religious beliefs required.
To learn more about coping with an illness and finding support, visit Health.com.
(PHOTO: JOHN DOE/ZEFA/CORBIS/ISTOCK/HEALTH)
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Comments (7)
I went through a protracted illness some years ago (acute liver failure followed by eventual liver transplant). My company has a chaplain service, and one of the chaplains here took an interest in me and my case. I am not religious at all and eventually became very uncomfortable with the situation. The chaplain was very relgious, and while I avoided speaking of religious convictions with her for as long as I could, she eventually asked me straight-out about my beliefs. Even today, five years later, she uses me as an example of “God’s miracles”, something I find extremely discomforting. In all, my experience was quite different from yours, and I don’t think I would look towards chaplains in the future for any comfort in a time of medical crisis.
Andrea,
Your personal experience is an excellent example of the comfort, support and healing chaplains provide patients and caregivers.
Unfortunate was the experience of the person who had a negative encounter with a “chaplain.”
Rather than avoid chaplains altogether, people can ask for a board certified chaplain.
Board certification privileges impose ethical responsibilities, as well as requirements for education and clinical training. The Code of Professional Ethics for board certified chaplains specifically prohibits proselytizing. It states, “Members shall affirm the religious and spiritual freedom of all persons and refrain from imposing doctrinal positions or spiritual practices on persons whom they encounter in their professional role as chaplain.”
- Rita Kaufman, Association of Professional Chaplains
Thank you, Andrea, for your story about the chaplain’s helpful presence in the hospital with your son Moses. Your description of chaplaincy was right on. Good, competent health care chaplains are skilled members of the interdisciplinary health care team and contribute to the wellbeing of patients as expert consultants on spirituality and its role in health and healing. Qualified chaplains need graduate studies in theology, divinity, pastoral care or counseling at the postgraduate level (M.A., M.Div. or equivalent). Chaplains provide a listening and compassionate heart, and support in a time of distress. In addition, chaplains must complete internship and residency in the clinical setting for a full year (or more), with 1600 documented hours of clinical experience, didactic training and supervision. Then, chaplain candidates may present to a professional board for certification. Our training is commensurate with other health care professionals, with our speciality being spirituality as an integral component of wellbeing. We intersect with other health care providers. The sine qua non for professional health care chaplains is Board Certification. We do not work for any religious body, but rather for the hospital. We must be grounded in our own specific faith tradition with respectful understanding of multiple faith traditions and multiculturalism. Health and healing throughout all ages and cultures has been associated with spirituality. Particularly in contemporary society, the spiritual has become overshadowed by science, industry and medical technology.
Skilled, qualified professional chaplains never proselytise or promote religion or creed; that is against our code of ethics. Unfortunately, outside our profession many “chaplaincy” endeavors come and go, sometimes with an overt or hidden denominational agenda. Some industries may choose unqualified, agenda-oriented workers as a less expensive alternative to professional counselors or employee assistance programs. I’m sorry to hear about the discomforts such unprofessional “chaplains” might have imposed upon people in spiritual and emotional distress. Health care agencies must be certain that they employ only qualified chaplains with studies completed at the master’s degree level, who have undergone the training and the continuing education to qualify as Board Certified Chaplains.
Peace and all goodness,
Virginia Carreiro, M.A.
Board Certified Chaplain
Sacramento, CA
this was a really interesting article. I never thought about the role of hospital chaplains beyond helping the dying. maybe Greys Anatomy should write this into the script…
Hi,
I am a voilunteer Chapalin at a major University Medical Center that has several staff chaplains but offers training for volunteers as well as accredidation for professionals.
The experience has been the most rewarding volunteer experience of my life. While we certainly respond to requests, all of the staff receives a religious census of patients, including decline to state. The ones in each denomination are visited by a co-religionist. For many patients it is the first contact of a religious nature that they have had in a long time. All of us come into the room with patience and a caring ear. I always let the patient lead the discussion, I offer compassion, caring and prayer. Often we become important for visiting loved ones, offering comfort and lots of times help with navigating the hospital protocols or even assistance for out of owners on local services and contacts.
All in all, the hospital chaplain, many times is the only visitor the patients ees and offers a much needed compassionate visitor
I would agree that a chaplain can be a great help, if nothing else, just to be the person to listen. Often, family and doctors are so consumed by their role that they cannot fulfill this basic need. I feel bad for the bad experience listed above, because I have found them to be an excellent resource in a difficult time, independent of religion.
I found this article whilst doing research for a paper I have to give on “Multiculturalism at the bedside”. Thank you for the wonderful example. I work in a women’s and children’s hospital in South Australia. We are needing to move from a denominational model of chaplaincy to an ecumenical and interfaith chaplaincy due to the increasing numbr of people from different faiths and decreasing number who nominate a particular religion on their forms.In the end I think love, compassion and hope override any faith boundaries, and just being together in silence can be the greatest testimony to that truth. It sometimes feels like you are doing nothing – but I think being is more important than doing.