Chaplains Offer Comfort to Patients
Many doctors recognize that the comfort patients gain from having a clergy member present can improve the patients’ mood and outlook on their illness. Dr. David Sugarbaker, renowned thoracic surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, found that patients who have regular pastoral access recover more quickly from surgery. As a result, Dr. Sugarbaker hired a chaplain devoted strictly to his mesothelioma patients.
Mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to airborne asbestos fibers, affects close to 4,000 Americans each year. The cancer is resistant to many of the standard treatments, and there is no known cure.
At Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and other Boston area hospitals, the number of requests for chaplains has increased so much over the last 4 years that the hospitals are responding with adding more priests, ministers, rabbis and imams. In September alone, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center anticipates the number of requests to rise to 540 – 10 times more than the same time last year.
The increases are due to the number of sicker patients being treated that are facing end-of-life decisions, a higher number of deeply religious patients, and the increasing role chaplains are taking in hospitals. Brigham’s, for example, requires their chaplains to accompany medical staff on all trauma calls.
