A MINISTER who serves as chaplain in an Adventist hospital is privileged in being able to combine healing, teaching, and preaching skills to carry out the great commission of Christ to the church. Though not serving as physician or psychiatrist, the chaplain, in ministering to the spiritual needs of patients, may touch on factors as vital to their healing as any medicine or surgery.
Chaplain Ed Bryan, in a research report entitled "A Concept of Chaplaincy," has observed: "The modern approach in medicine is uniting to treat man as a whole being. The wholistic concept of the treatment of medicine is becoming more and more meaningful. The voice of illness is being understood in terms of therapy, as an expression of a total organism and not just a problem of one of its parts. . .. Simply conceived, illness is a breakdown in the unity of the individual both intrapersonal and interpersonal. . . . One cannot separate medical factors and spiritual factors in terms of wholeness. As the healing powers take place, and sympathy is shown to the individual, he reacts in response and is thus conditioned for healing."
The chaplain's work is thus complementary to that of others in the hospital, and is an integral part of the healing team's effort "to make man whole." Kenneth R. Mitchell adds, "A chap lain is a person with a foot in two worlds; the world of faith and the world of modern medicine. Not a doctor, but often asked to 'explain' an operation; not a social worker, but often a family counselor; not a professor, but on and off a teacher of young doctors; not a pastor, but usually a pastoral counselor." —Hospital Chaplain, 1972.
Chaplains in Adventist health-care institutions are chosen from the ranks of ordained ministers. Those taking up this work do not leave the ministry, but are assigned as ministers of the gospel, an extension and integral part of the ministry. This harmonizes with Ellen White's statement, "No line is to be drawn between the genuine medical missionary work and the gospel ministry. These two must blend. . . . They are to be joined in an inseparable union, even as the hand is joined to the body." —Medical Ministry, p. 250.
The minister thus assigned to a hospital is first of all to be a spiritual leader in example and precept, in empathy and concern. The chaplain serves as spiritual counselor lending an understanding ear to patients, as pastor to the employees, and as spiritual consultant and team member to the physician. To the clergy of other faiths who visit their parishioners, the chaplain becomes a co-worker and sometimes even a teacher. Finally, the chaplain is the spiritual representative of the hospital in the community. In no way, however, should this work interfere with his responsibility for the spiritual well-being of patients, administrators, or employees.
Chaplain Gordon T. Hewlett, of Boulder Memorial Hospital, says, "We meet more non-Adventists in our regular day-to-day tasks than many a minister in our churches. We meet people at their time of need."
Though they may spend many hours in direct contact with patients, chaplains can multiply their effectiveness by helping other hospital personnel to develop and maintain a spiritual atmosphere in the Seventh-day Adventist institution. Thus chaplains may spend as much, if not more, time with employees and the medical staff as they do with patients.
At the Orlando Hospital, Florida, the chaplains' department provides a pro gram called "The Positive Way," in which employees are taught the methods by which Christ ministered to the sick and are encouraged to represent Christ in their every act. In orientation classes conducted for nurses and nursing students, the chaplains emphasize the importance of the spiritual dimensions of nursing care. These include such things as how to pray with patients, how to become sensitive to the spiritual and emotional needs of patients, and how to notice a ray of inter est that can be further developed.
Chaplain Albert E. Brendel, Jr., of the Kettering Medical Center, reports: "I think our chaplain's program is making a significant contribution to the healing of employees. One of the very important parts of a chaplain's work is to help the hurting employee as well as to provide for him or her a high standard of excellence, where the patient is not a number and where spiritual values are a part of the healing ministry."
The chaplain has a responsibility to work closely as a consultant with the physician. Whether or not invited to go on the hospital rounds, the chaplain should convey to each patient's physician the spiritual concerns that may be affecting the patient's physical condition.
Those appointed to this ministry also have responsibility as spiritual leaders in the community, and serve to coordinate the visits of clergy of all faiths. In this way the religious rights of each patient are respected. Patients should be able to communicate their needs to the ministers, priests, and rabbis of their respective faiths. This also gives the chaplain an unusual opportunity to meet many other clergy.
Community Outreach
Educational programs for community residents are carried on by many hospitals. Hinsdale Sanitarium and Hospital has recently conducted two "Full Life Seminars," a seminar in "Hospital Medicine for the Clergy," another in "Cancer Residency for the Clergy," and a pro gram designed to awaken a spirit of inquiry among community people and patients. This last program was fol lowed up with a Bible-study group led every Tuesday evening by staff physicians.
Relatives of patients often ask chaplains to conduct funeral services for those who have spent their final days in our hospitals.
One of the major problems that many chaplains are attempting to solve is that of trying to follow up the interests created in our health-care institutions. Chaplain Walter Kloss, of the New England Memorial Hospital, recently wrote, "We feel that the impact made upon the patient in the hospital . . . opens wide the door to his heart. Recently a chaplain has been hired to do follow-up work. When patients are dis charged we send them a letter expressing our happiness that they are getting better and inviting them to consider expanding their spiritual life with the Focus on Living Bible Course." He adds, "Eleven Bible studies a week are being given by the field chaplain alone. The chaplain's office also conducts an Out patient Life Group for people in the community and a Loss Group for people who have lost loved ones." The physicians at this hospital also finance a chaplain specifically to work with their outpatients.
Other media for bringing spiritual help to inpatients are the radio and TV. Patients can listen to the Voice of Prophecy, the Quiet Hour, and many of our other radio programs over speakers provided by the hospitals. It Is Written, Breath of Life, Faith for Today, and health-education films are often avail able to patients through closed-circuit television. Bibles, books, pamphlets, and magazines are usually provided in waiting rooms or put in patients' rooms.
A Challenge to the Church
More than 5 million patients are treated in our health-care centers every year. All these pose a challenge to the church—how can we best use the moment when patients feel a threat to their physical life and comfort to help them gain an interest in their spiritual and eternal life? Though such opportunities may have been neglected at times in the past, there are prospects now of our hospitals around the world taking a greater concern for meeting the challenge. In several hospitals when the public-address system signals a code or alarm that a medical emergency for some patient is taking place somewhere in the building, employees stop for a moment of silent prayer for that patient. On one occasion, a nurse was willing to care for a baby in her own home while the mother recovered from mental illness. Needless to say, she made a great impression on many people.
When a physician, after a busy day, conducts a Bible study in his home with interested patients, he and others see results. In stimulating this kind of concern, chaplains must be considered an integral part of the ministry of the church. They should be paid from the same funds as are other ordained ministers. Chaplains are front-line evangelists, pastors, Bible workers, and spiritual counselors. They should not be isolated from other departments of the church organization. As part of the health-oriented team, chaplains are carrying out in their work the highest principles of the ministry.
