Pastoral Care In Hospitals

Bringing comfort and concern to the bedside of the sick or dying is a challenge for lay people and clergy alike. In this practical guide, Neville Kirkwood shares his wisdom–gleaned from some twenty years of experience as a hospital chaplain–on the art of hospital visitation. This classic handbook is now updated, with an all-new section addressing best practices for hospital chaplains. Pastoral Care in Hospitals, with additional sections addressed to clergy and trained lay pastoral workers, as well as ordinary lay people who simply want to visit their fellow-parishioners, shows visitors ways to make the encounter meaningful and enriching to the patient. Kirkwood guides readers through the minefield of hospital visits–from false heartiness to too much talking–and offers a theology of visitation that can guide both professionals and laity in their ministry. A variety of exercises and a section of prayers for specific circumstances make this a must-have resource for all who work with the sick and dying, and an excellent text for course work.

The contributors include twelve staff chaplains of the Division of Pastoral Care, Luthernan General Hospital, Park Ridge, Illinois, in addition to a church historian, an ethicist, a research psychologists, and an expert on substance abuse. Book jacket.

The place of religion in public life continues to be a much-debated topic in Western nations. This book charts the changing role of hospital chaplains and examines through detailed case studies the realities of practice and the political debates which either threaten or sustain the service. This second edition includes a new introduction and updated material throughout to present fresh insights and research about chaplaincy, including in relation to New Atheism and the developing debate about secularism and religion in public life. Swift concludes that chaplains must do more to communicate the value of what they bring to the bedside.

Hospital-based pastoral care is a privileged yet complex area of ministry. It involves spiritual journeying to the heights and depths of human experience, often in brief and transient pastoral encounters. Illness and fear lay bare life’s realities and there is often need for reconciliation as well as healing. Chaplains, visiting clergy and the growing number of lay volunteers need to be able to interpret pained silences or body language – and often in a matter of minutes. This warm-hearted and practical handbook explores the pastoral sensitivities surrounding patient encounters and the challenges of current socio-political pressures. Through stories and examples it explores key biblical themes of love, loss, hope, grace and forgiveness, and worldly themes of dignity, discrimination, identity and choice. It explores the essential skills needed for this kind of ministry: the importance of ritual, difficult pastoral tasks, deflecting anger, caring for the carers, working in multi-faith contexts and more. It also provides a useful section of prayers, readings and other resources for a wide range of pastoral needs.

Evaluating the success of hospital chaplaincy has been a difficult task, but finally an effective approach has been developed. Ministry of Hospital Chaplains: Patient Satisfaction presents the Patient Satisfaction Instrument for Pastoral Care (PSI) which measures the quality and character of spiritual care and can contribute to the establishment of professional norms. To find out whether specific changes in pastoral practices lead to increased satisfaction among patients, this test can be used periodically. As you will see, this allows managers and department heads to identify and monitor specific functions and areas in which improvement is needed. Ministry of Hospital Chaplains will help you analyze the background variables that are associated with patient satisfaction, the styles of pastoral care that are linked to better hospital outcomes, and the usefulness of different pastoral activities. In the end, you will be able to use empirical evidence to demonstrate to hospital administrators that patients appreciate pastoral care and that chaplains are helping patients recuperate, experience an easier time at the hospital, and get home more quickly. Besides discussing how to evaluate the effectiveness of chaplains, this insightful book explores: enacting continuous improvement efforts pastoral care characteristics that predict a patient’s readiness to return home how attention to details can build protocols that respond to patients questionnaire responses from 2,000 discharged hospital patients in the U.S. and Canada why the need to evaluate the benefits of pastoral care exists the aspects of pastoral care most important to patients Chaplains in general and those in psychiatric hospitals, hospital administrators, managed care directors, and seminary professors of pastoral care will be glad to know that a technique for evaluating pastoral services has finally arrived. The guessing game is over. Now, you will know what your patients think of the services your hospital offers, and you can measure alternative approaches to pastoral care delivery when discontent is registered.