The science of caring

A downsizing crisis at Mount Carmel Medical Center, Columbus, OH, forced its Pastoral Care Department to begin thinking in terms of accountability. Trained in an intuitive style of chaplaincy, the staff distrusted a clinical approach to pastoral care. Nonetheless, when they found themselves scrambling to justify their existence, the entire department staff literally withdrew from the hospital for two days to redesign pastoral care. What evolved was a process of "focused care." It represented a radical departure from their traditional assumptions about chaplaincy in that henceforth they would (1) base their ministry on assessment of spiritual need, with primary attention to high-risk patient populations, (2) continue to provide eucharistic ministry through volunteers, but no longer rely on Catholic chaplains to carry out those duties, (3) no longer assume that a chaplain needed to be present at every death or medical crisis, and (4) no longer assume that the impact of a spiritual ministry could not be objectively measured.