What Are the Duties of a Hospital Chaplain?
A hospital chaplain provides pastoral care to patients, their family members and hospital employees. She offers spiritual support and crisis intervention 24 hours a day. Hospital chaplains may work in hospitals or in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. They typically are ordained ministers with special training involving spiritual needs in clinical and hospital environments.
Other People Are Reading
-
Support for Patients
-
Hospital chaplains often make rounds just as physicians do, offering spiritual support to patients and their families, talking with them, reading the Bible and praying together.
Support for Staff
-
Hospital chaplains provide spiritual counseling for hospital employees experiencing professional or personal problems.
-
Support for the Gravely Ill
-
The chaplains provide support for patients who are critically ill or dying, and for their families and other loved ones. This is especially important for patients who do not have a minister or are not near their home.
Worship Services
-
Another duty of the chaplain is conducting worship services in the hospital chapel for patients and hospital staff.
Community Education
-
Hospital chaplains conduct community seminars on topics such as terminal illness, the spiritual meaning of death and the grieving process.
-
- Photo Credit photo by Paul Keleher at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pkeleher/421463369/
