First Steps: Approaching The Discipline Based,Outcome Oriented Ministry Model

SUMMARY

This article describes how a new staff chaplain is approaching and applying a discipline based, outcome oriented ministry model. He describes his move from being a lone, geriatric chaplain in a long term care facility to becoming a member of a team of staff chaplains in a teaching hospital who have disciplined themselves to an outcome oriented ministry model. The writer gives his perspective on The Discipline, and denotes ways in which his ministry has been impacted. Though the author has been involved with this process for only six months, both he and those in his care are experiencing some of the benefits of making tangible contributions and developing measurable outcomes in ministry.     

The Discipline: its impact on my theological perspective, pastoral identity and practice

This article is a personal interpretation of how The Discipline has re-formulated the pastoral identity, practice, and theology of a board certified chaplain providing ministry to patients in the heart sciences. His reflections take into account his history as an ordained priest and as a professionally trained chaplain. The article reflects his struggles and theological transformations, demonstrating how a theological base may emerge from the interpretative reflection on The Discipline. The article describes the uneasy internal and external processes that occurred in and around him during that transformation. His story also attests to growth made "from the inside out" as a chaplain within a generative multi-faith department.     

A Case Study Using The Discipline with a Clinical Team

SUMMARY

Health care delivery in hospitals and clinics promotes an interdisciplinary team approach. This article presents the use of The Discipline though the involvements of the chaplain as part of the Infectious Disease team as together they addressed the inherent spirituality of one HIV/AIDS patient. This narrative recounts the unfolding events of the patient's life and describes the use of The Discipline during a very difficult time period for the patient and the staff. The experience can serve as a model for other health care teams who must manage difficult, deteriorating patients.     

The Dance with The Discipline

SUMMARY

The author became acquainted with The Discipline only recently and this article describes two pastoral visits in which The Discipline provides guidance for interactive presence. Thus this material represents how the author seeks to grasp and integrate it into her clinical practice in a short time.     

An Adaptation of The Discipline in a Clinical Pastoral Education Program

SUMMARY

The author describes his perspective on providing pastoral care to hospital patients, his search for new ways to understand that ministry, his first contact with The Discipline, and his adaptation of it to the clinical and educational programs at his center. He discusses the need to help clinical pastoral education students to operationalize their ministry and to learn how to identify outcomes that are meaningful to health care decision makers.     

Experience with Clinical Pastoral Education in the Context of The Discipline

SUMMARY

This article relates the experience of integrating The Discipline into the process and curriculum of an ACPE accredited clinical pastoral education (CPE) program involving residents and single unit students. It describes supervisor and student concerns as well as the conclusions they reached concerning the integration of The Discipline into The CPE process.     

The Discipline for Doing Spiritual Care: Variations on a Theme

SUMMARY

This article describes the writer's introduction to The Discipline and his decision to utilize selected aspects of it in direct care and in an educational milieu. The first section describes adaptation of the Profile (Concepts of Holy, Meaning, Hope, and Community) in the writer's work with addicted persons on a Recovery Center. The second section presents the employment of this Profile as a way to introduce CPE interns to the art of pastoral assessment.     

Using The Discipline for Integrative Ministry Formation

SUMMARY

One United Methodist Annual Conference has begun a program of ministry formation education for probationary, first-appointment ministers in conjunction with Emory Clergy Care, Atlanta. This program uses an adaptation of The Discipline as an integral part of their ongoing formation education. Participants have learned the basics of planned pastoral care delivery, family and congregational systems thinking and self-supervision. Using The Discipline, they have been effectively adapting it to their local church settings and ministries.     

Playing Well with Others: The Discipline in a Pediatric Hospital

SUMMARY

This article contains a personal reflection on the way it feels, in fact and in theory, to move from a chaplaincy position in a clinical setting, to one where clinical chaplaincy is relatively new. The article presents the ways a clinically trained chaplain can introduce herself to a new setting, and how she must continually reevaluate her approach.     

Outpatient Care: The Modern Chaplains' New Impact in Healthcare Reform

SUMMARY

An oncology chaplain details, using The Discipline for Pastoral Care Giving, common themes in the spiritual journeys of stem cell/bone marrow transplantation survivors, and helpful chaplain interventions.     

A Disciplined Approach to Spiritual Care Giving for Adults Living with Cystic Fibrosis

SUMMARY

Adults living with cystic fibrosis are less likely than other pulmonary patients to describe themselves as religious, to attend worship services regularly, to use god language, to describe their spiritual life, and in general, to give any obvious, outward indications of their spiritual strength, concerns, and depth. And yet, they have consistently demonstrated in chaplain-patient encounters an awareness of the function and importance of their spirituality in relation to life choices, coping with illness, facing mortality, and expressing life meaning, beliefs, and values. A disciplined approach by chaplains is a key component to engaging these patients so that each person's unique spiritual story unfolds. Results from The Discipline demonstrate how adults with cystic fibrosis are different in their expression and approach to spirituality from other pulmonary patients.     

The Chaplain as the Complete Philosopher

SUMMARY

This paper argues that professional chaplaincy must reflect an authentic understanding of the religion and science dialogue by drawing not simply on the popular culture's views but on the long traditions of serious scholarship and research that explores both these worlds. The author claims that what often passes as science is really scientism or technophilia and that such distortions should not be allowed to guide or define the chaplain's or the clinical educator's healthcare ministry. The chaplain, as a reflection of religion, is obligated to draw on all of humankind's projects of enquiry–science, art, humanities, theological and religious studies, ethics–and ought not become a captive of a Zeitgeist that invites idolatry either in the forms of scientism and technophilia or in the forms of provincial and superficial understandings of religion.     

A Qualitative Study of Patient and Family Perceptions of Chaplain Presence During Post-Trauma Care

Improving the provision of spiritual care to hospitalized patients requires understanding what patients look for from a hospital chaplain, and why. This qualitative study uses grounded theory methodology to analyze data from 25 interviews with adult patients and/or adult family members who received spiritual care in a large tertiary care hospital. Analysis reveals three key themes in chaplaincy care: the attributes valued in the chaplain’s presence, the elements necessary to form relationship with the chaplain, and the role of the chaplain in helping patients to discover and express meaning in their experiences. The authors weave these three themes together into a grounded theory and propose an assessment model that incorporates psychological theory about human motivation, faith development, and the development of autonomy. An understanding of the proposed assessment model can guide chaplain interventions and benefit all members of the clinical care team.     

First steps: approaching The Discipline based, outcome oriented ministry model

This article describes how a new staff chaplain is approaching and applying a discipline based, outcome oriented ministry model. He describes his move from being a lone, geriatric chaplain in a long term care facility to becoming a member of a team of staff chaplains in a teaching hospital who have disciplined themselves to an outcome oriented ministry model. The writer gives his perspective on The Discipline, and denotes ways in which his ministry has been impacted. Though the author has been involved with this process for only six months, both he and those in his care are experiencing some of the benefits of making tangible contributions and developing measurable outcomes in ministry.     

Stroke:

Strokes are one the America's major health problems. While there is progress toward prevention, the health care chaplain must understand the basic mechanics of stroke as a context for theological reflection and ministry. This article outlines the physical dynamics and effects of stroke as well as the stories of ministry to three stroke patients.     

A case study of Jerry: emphasizing team communication through use of the Discipline

After the chaplain is well acquainted with The Discipline and has begun to implement it in daily pastoral practice, half of the work is done. The further work concerns how and what to communicate to the care team regarding the chaplain's observations. This article begins by offering a pastoral reflection on the chaplain's identity and pastoral practice within a multi-disciplinary care team. The pastoral reflection highlights key theological assertions used by The Discipline. The author then identifies the particular problems facing care teams and their communication that the chaplain can anticipate when using The Discipline. Thirdly, the author suggests workable, theologically based tools for the resolution of these problems. Lastly, through the case study of "Jerry," the author illustrates both the "how" and "what" components of care team communication using the working elements of The Discipline. The "how" component describes the informal and formal relational processes that have contributed to a working partnership. The case study also illustrates the "what" part of care team communication--the structure and delivery of observable and discernible content to physicians and nurses. These materials can ease the transition towards effective pastoral presence on the interdisciplinary care team regarding patient and family/support partner care.     

Forget Me Not: The Spiritual Care of People with Alzheimer's Disease

SUMMARY

This article observes that many clergy do not seem to understand the importance of ministry to persons with dementia. New understandings about the relationship between dementia and spirituality are presented and theological foundations explored. The article ends with a discussion of pastoral strategies that are important in this ministry.     

Relationship Between Chaplain Visits and Patient Satisfaction

This prospective study investigated the relationship between chaplain visits and patient satisfaction, as measured by Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) and Press Ganey surveys from 8,978 patients who had been discharged from a tertiary care hospital. Controlling for patients' age, gender, race, ethnicity, language, education, faith, general health status, and medical conditions, chaplain visits increased the willingness of patients to recommend the hospital, as measured by both the HCAHPS survey (regression coefficient = 0.07, p < .05) and the Press Ganey survey (0.11, p < .01). On the Press Ganey survey, patients visited by chaplains were also more likely to endorse that staff met their spiritual needs (0.27, p < .001) and their emotional needs (0.10, p < .05). In terms of overall patient satisfaction, patients visited by a chaplain were more satisfied on both the Press Ganey survey (0.11, p < .01) and on the HCAHPS survey (0.17, p < .05). Chaplains' integration into the healthcare team improves patients' satisfaction with their hospital stay.