Spiritual Care in Common Terms: How Chaplains Can Effectively Describe the Spiritual Needs of Patients in Medical Records

by Gordon J. Hilsman D.Min, James H. Gunn (Foreword)

Encouraging a broad, compassionate, humanistic approach to spirituality, this book shows how patients' spiritual needs can be communicated well within interdisciplinary teams, leading to better patient wellbeing.This book describes the art of charting patients' spiritual perspectives in an open way that will help physicians and nurses to better direct medical care. It includes practical information on how to distil spiritual needs into pragmatic language, helping to demystify spiritual experience. Drawing on his extensive practical experience, the author also suggests key points to emphasise that will enrich chart notes for medical records, including brief, relative narratives, trusting one's own impressions, reflecting holistically on the patient's life, patient attitudes towards treatment and recovery, and describing families' opinions on the health care situation of their loved one. The book shows healthcare professionals of all disciplines how to engage in a shared responsibility for the spiritual care of their patients.

Genres: Nonfiction

334 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 21, 2016

Reviews

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly written for Chaplains and CPE students as a tool to help with the effectiveness of chart notes, at least on the surface. Under the surface, however, Hillsman is really interested in Chaplains most effectively connecting and communicating with the entire interdisciplinary team the things that Chaplins are doing that other team members are not, and why those things can drastically affect the quality of medical care. Stick it out past the first chapter or two, it gets better as it goes along. I read this as a part of a CPE residency group learning project and found it worth the time. Recommended.

[Alyssa Foll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my 4th of July, long weekend read. My CPE Supervisor suggested that I read this as we are working on charting and distilling patient conversations into notes that can be helpful to an interdisciplinary team.

This is certainly a technical book for chaplains or other spiritual care givers. I thought it had some very helpful ideas and certainly creates a vision of chaplaincy that I want to be a part of. Certainly worth checking out if you are working on documentation for spiritual care giving.

[Tomigirl44 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great look at chaplaincy ministry and charting, I wish this book had been available when I first started CPE, visiting patients and charting. I’m confident it will be appreciated by beginning students as well as chaplains reviewing and striving to grow in their skills.

[James Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Resource for Charting
This book is not for everyone. However, it is an excellent resource for people who work in hospital ministry. Skip the first three chapters and jump in at chapter four to help improve your charting. If you are a hospital chaplain, you need this in your library.

[James Passaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll admit this book helped me chart better and humanize patients with my words better. With that said, it could have been half as long easily