By ERIC HANSON
Texas Medical Center News

Virgil Fry has spent most of his adult life as a chaplain serving patients and their families at the institutions of the Texas Medical Center. As the executive director of Lifeline Chaplaincy, he has seen thousands of very sick people during his career but one patient remains freshly firm in his memory. "There was a man at M.D. Anderson who had a series of facial surgeries and by the time I met him most of his face had been removed," Fry remembered. "When you looked at him, you were looking at a gaping orifice." Fry said the man had a prosthesis mask but could talk better without it and asked him if he could take the mask off while they chatted. "We had the most incredible visit after he took that mask off. He began to talk about what he had been through," Fry said. "He had a very tender heart. He said he had spent a lot of time wrestling with God and there were times when he wanted to end his own life but he didn't." Fry said the patient then began asking about him, his family, and how he came to be a chaplain.

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Lifeline Chaplaincy is pleased to announce its upcoming "Creating a Healing Community" Workshop, to be held May 15-17, 2009 in Houston. This workshop, while intended primarily for lay pastoral caregivers, is also an excellent refresher and continuing education opportunity for professional chaplains.

A 17-hour intensive weekend workshop designed to equip spiritual care providers and other interested persons with basic listening, self-awareness and interpersonal relationship skills necessary for effective ministry.

- Required for Lifeline Chaplaincy spiritual care volunteers
- Recommended for ministers, elders, visitation ministry leaders and others involved in providing spiritual care

Topics include:
- Defining a healing community
- Losses and their effect(s) on us
- Basic listening and communication skills
- Perception and its role in listening
- "Why me?"
- Grief and Grieving
- Caring for the Caregiver
- Role play in ministry and listening

This workshop will be held
Friday, May 15, 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Light supper provided
Saturday, May 16, 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. Continental breakfast and lunch provided
Sunday, May 17, 1:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

To register: Call Lifeline Chaplaincy at 713-524-1055
Or via E-mail at lifeline@lifelinechaplaincy.org

Registration fee: $50.00 payable at the door
Registration deadline May 11.

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL CHAPLAINS OUTSTANDING LOCAL LEADERSHIP AWARD
Steven Spidell DMin BCC Houston, Texas
The Outstanding Local Leadership Award is given to a member in good standing who has exhibited outstanding dedication to and promotion of the Association of Professional Chaplains through active involvement at the substate, state and/or multi-state level.
Steven Spidell, from Houston, TX, is executive director of Presbyterian Outreach to Patients. He interfaces regularly with chaplains at Methodist Hospital, MD Anderson Hospital and St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, among others in the Houston area.
About nine years ago, Steve instituted the first annual APC South Texas Chaplains' meeting, which continues to this day under the leadership of another chaplain. e purpose of these annual meetings is to promote fellowship, continuing education and peer review. A consummate learner, Steve also has taken the lead for several years in organizing a monthly brown bag lunch for the chaplains in the Texas Medical Center. His roster of lunchtime presenters has included theologians, educators, medical practitioners and chaplains from a variety of ministry settings. One colleague writes, "Without Steve's leadership role, it could have been difficult for many of us to meet our continuing education requirement to maintain our board certification."
Long an advocate for chaplains writing and conducting research, Steve embarked on a wide-ranging research project to detail the types of interventions chaplains most frequently utilize. From this work, Steve was able to delineate more clearly how professional chaplains function with those they serve. Another colleague states, "We at our hospital have benefitted from Steve's educational research projects. His published work has enhanced the profession of chaplaincy."
Currently, Steve is meeting with several other chaplains to address the topic of hospital chaplaincy best practices. One chaplain writes, "Steve personally challenged me to convene a group to develop a best practice protocol for the chaplain's response to codes. His leadership and direction for this process has been fruitful in furthering collegiality as well as producing a useful protocol that will benefit the profession... I can say with certainty that any contributions Ioffer to APC began as a result of Steve Spidell's gentle and continuing leadership in the Texas Medical Center. An alumnus of both Wesley eological Seminary in Washington, DC and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, TX, Steve is endorsed as a chaplain with the Presbyterian Church USA. He was ordained in 1990
and board certified in 2000. He is married to the Reverend Cheryl Smith, associate pastor of First United Methodist Church in Pasadena, TX. They live in Pearland, TX, a suburb of Houston, with their 17-year-old son, Robin. Steve is also a parent to two
stepdaughters, Colly and Cayce.

Monday, March 16, 2009

The year 2008 afforded many avenues for Chaplaincy to partner with the medical faculty of M. D. Anderson as it sought to provide the best of care for the thousands of patients who enter our doors.

One such project included Lois Ramondetta, M.D., associate professor in Gynecologic Oncology; the Rev. David Jenkins, D.Min., director of Chaplaincy; and AnneMarie Wallace, manager of Clinical Chaplaincy Programs, who met to brainstorm ways of providing Gynecologic Oncology residents and fellows an understanding of the multiple, intentional spiritual care approaches that chaplains facilitate during their visits with patients.

Read the article here.

Visit the Website: Lifeline Chaplaincy

The 2nd Annual THE JOHN E. FELLERS SYMPOSIUM

"Wrestling with the Angels: Assisting People Through Times of Spiritual Struggle"
Kenneth Pargament, Ph.D. is Professor of Clinical Psychology, Bowling Green State University.

Dr. Pargament is professor of clinical psychology at Bowling Green State University. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland and interned in clinical psychology at Rutgers Medical School. He completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology at the johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Dr. Pargament joined the faculty in the psychology Department at Bowling Green State university in 1979. He has also served as Adjunct Professor in the School of Theology at Boston University from 1999 to 2005 and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Lackland Air Force Base Medical Center.

Register online at: www.ish-tmc.org or call 713-797-0600

By Andrea Useem | June 18, 2008
Health.com

Excerpt: "When the chaplain arrived in Moses' room, she was just what I needed: someone wearing normal clothes (not scrubs), who sat with me and asked about Moses, and about me, and said a little prayer with us. I am Muslim, and she was not, but it didn't seem to matter. I found myself in tears, at last able to express emotions the hospital drama had somehow paralyzed."

Read the article here

Can We Measure Good Chaplaincy?
A new professional identity is tied to quality improvement
The November December 2008 publication of The Hastings Center Report (Vol. 38, No.6) contains several exceptional articles which focus on the profession of chaplaincy, the goal of patient-centered care, and the special challenges of defining, measuring, and improving quality in less-standardized areas of health care delivery. Having served on the project workgroup, I highly commend this publication as a useful resource for healthcare administrators, chaplaincy personnel, and ethicists.
David R. Jenkins, DMin
Director of Chaplaincy

Read the reports and essays:
The Hastings Report
The Hastings Report Essays

Start an online discussion of the reports on the Spiritual Pathways Community Forum