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01-06-2011 | Original Paper

What Do Chaplains Contribute to Large Academic Hospitals? The Perspectives of Pediatric Physicians and Chaplains

Authors: Wendy Cadge, Katherine Calle, Jennifer Dillinger

Published in: Journal of Religion and Health | Issue 2/2011

Abstract

This article analyzes interviews with pediatric physicians (N = 30) and chaplains (N = 22) who work at the same large academic medical centers (N = 13). We ask how pediatric physicians understand and work with chaplains and how chaplains describe their own work. We find that physicians see chaplains as part of interdisciplinary medical teams where they perform rituals and support patients and families, especially around death. Chaplains agree but frame their contributions in terms of the perspectives related to wholeness, presence, and healing they bring. Chaplains have a broader sense of what they contribute to patient care than do physicians.

For more information see: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/pastoral/resed/JCAHOspiritrefs09.pdf.

For examples of how individual chaplains spend their time and define their jurisdictions, see first person studies by Angrosino (2006), Mitchell (1972), Russell (1975), Spirn (2000), Holst (1985).

For additional first person accounts of physician-chaplain relations see Westberg (1961).

The methodology to determine honor roll distinction combined hospital reputation, mortality data and patient-care related factors; when six or more specialty areas showed “exceptional breadth of excellence,” the hospital placed greater than two standard deviations above the mean and was granted honor role status. U.S. News & World Report. July 12, 2004 edition, “Honor Roll Hospitals.”

For more information see (Catlin, Cadge, and Ecklund 2008; Ecklund et al. 2007).

For a broader discussion of these perspectives see Cadge (forthcoming).

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Title: What Do Chaplains Contribute to Large Academic Hospitals? The Perspectives of Pediatric Physicians and Chaplains
Authors: Wendy Cadge
Katherine Calle
Jennifer Dillinger
Publication date: 01-06-2011
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Religion and Health / Issue 2/2011
Print ISSN: 0022-4197
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6571
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-011-9474-8

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