(Download) "What Are We Doing Here? Chaplains in Contemporary Health Care (Essays)" by The Hastings Center Report * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: What Are We Doing Here? Chaplains in Contemporary Health Care (Essays)
- Author : The Hastings Center Report
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Life Sciences,Books,Science & Nature,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 164 KB
Description
It can be really hard--or really easy--to explain what I do for a living. Chaplains share academic training with clergy, but we complete clinical residencies and work in health care organizations. Our affinities are with the patient and family, but we may also chair the ethics committee or serve on the institutional review board, and we spend a lot of time with staff. We must demonstrate a relationship with an established religious tradition (in my case, United Church of Christ), but we serve patients of all faiths, and of no faith, and seek to protect patients against proselytizing. We provide something that may be called "pastoral" care, "spiritual" care, or just "chaplaincy"--but even among ourselves, we do not always agree about what that thing is. There are many, many definitions of "spiritual care" in the context of health care. (1) They all tend to have something to do with transcendence: how the suffering individual grapples with issues of identity, meaning, and purpose. They may or may not be expressed in terms of religion or culture. While any caregiver can tend to the spiritual needs of a suffering person, the chaplain is the health care professional expert in providing spiritual care. (2)