Medical Students' Reflections on Their Experiences in a Trauma Chaplain Shadowing Program.

The importance of spirituality in patient care is well recognized and efforts to develop educational opportunities to improve medical students' competency in spirituality and health are ongoing. In this regard, shadowing of healthcare chaplains has emerged as an experiential approach for providing exposure to and instruction in issues of spirituality in the patient experience and in patient care. Recently published data suggest that a 6-8 hour experience of shadowing a trauma chaplain is effective at introducing first-year medical students to healthcare chaplaincy, difficult spiritual conversations with patients and families, and interprofessional collaboration.

Chaplain Care in the Intensive Care Unit at the End of Life: A Qualitative Analysis.

The provision of spiritual care is a key component of high-quality patient-centered care, particularly in the intensive care unit (ICU). However, the integration of spiritual care into the care of patients in the ICU is variable, especially at the end of life, which may be due in part to poor or incomplete provider knowledge of the work of chaplains. To characterize the care and services provided by chaplains to patients in an ICU at the end of life and/or their families.

Chaplain-Physician Interactions From the Chaplain's Perspective: A Mixed Method Analysis.

Background: The value of healthcare chaplains to patient care is increasingly recognized. However, physicians' understandings of the role of pastoral care have been reported to be poor, which have raised concerns about the quality of chaplain-physician interactions and their impact on patient care. These interactions, particularly from the perspective of the chaplain, have not been extensively investigated.

Medical Students' Experience in a Trauma Chaplain Shadowing Program: A Mixed Method Analysis.

Despite the importance of spirituality to health and patient care, there remains a lack of educational opportunities for medical students to learn about and engage the spiritual needs of patients. Shadowing of hospital chaplains has been employed as a means of providing instruction in spirituality, but published experiences of this pedagogy are limited. This study therefore analyzed an elective, first-year medical student, eight-hour, trauma chaplain shadowing experience, the objectives of which are to increase students' knowledge and understanding of (i) the role of chaplains/pastoral care in patient care; (ii) strategies for engaging patients and/or families in difficult situations; and (iii) approaches for discussing issues of spirituality with patients and families.