Spiritual Care in Common Terms

Foreword. Introduction. Part One: Why record the intangible? 1. Do spiritual perspectives help patients? 2. Contentious siblings: medical care and spiritual perspectives. 3. The value of patient narratives in the medical record. 4. Sorting the sustaining power of religion from its destructive peril. 5. Meeting in the spirituality that is Humanism. 6. Spiritual need and caregiver satisfaction. Part Two: Form counts - the shape of an elegant chart note. 7. ""Capturing the soul"" in narrative. 8. A basic chart note format. 9. The all-important first sentence. 10. A descriptive paragraph. 11. Summarizing the salient in bullet points. Part Three: Reflections on the primary sources of human narratives - a listening framework. 12. Interpersonal spirituality - who we love and who loves us. 13. Personal spirituality - the long and diverse paths to self-treasuring. 14. Transcendent spirituality - facing the awe and dread of transcendence. 15. Communal spirituality - gathering of all kinds. Part Four: Twenty-one spiritual needs common among hospitalized people. 16. Emotional support needs. 17. Major loss needs. 18. Religious and non-religious spiritual needs. 19. Referral needs. Part Five: The charting process - extracting the relevant in process and content. 20. Clarifying the real ethical and confidentiality concerns. 21. The use of intuition. 22. What nurses want to know about a patient's human spirit. 23. What physicians value about spiritual care. 24. Partnering with social workers. 25. Patient relationships with their caregivers. 26. Attitudes about one's health situation and treatment. 27. Identifying issues and needs. 28. Quotes to clinch impressions. 29. Fashioning spiritual care recommendations and plans. Part Six: Spiritual care outcomes. 30. The inherent limitations of assessing spiritual care outcomes. 31. A phenomological approach to assessing outcomes. 32. What pleases chaplains and what saddens them - the need for data and research. 33. Suggested hoped-for outcomes of the 21 commonly-identified needs. Epilogue - becoming and remaining a spiritual clinician.

Spirituality of patients is an essential domain of whole-person care. Patients often suffer in silence; that suffering or spiritual distress must be recognized and treated. Professional chaplains are essential members of the healthcare team. It is critical that they communicate verbally and in the chart note the spiritual needs of the patient, how they are addressing that need and what outcomes the team should look for to help the patient heal. Spiritual Care in Common Terms offers the language and format for chaplains to communicate this clinical aspect of spiritual care that can be understood in the reductionist clinical framework but keeps the patient's inner narrative in the forefront of their care for all members to provide compassionate care for our patients. This is a must read for not only chaplains but for other members of the interdisciplinary team.