It'd been hard going in the hospital recently. I seemed to have been inundated with funerals for people who had died far too soon. I was sometimes being bleeped out 3 nights in a row and sometimes several tims in the same night. despite this I still had to work the next day.
Around this time there was a general email that went out asking for people to respond who were interested in becoming members of the ethics committee. Ethics and theology have been linked through the centuries and I had to do an ethics module as part of my ordination training. I went along to get some info and decided to apply. I thought it’d be a great way of keeping up with current trends in the NHS. The co-ordinator also said that it was a role I could share with my senior colleague. I said I would mention it to her when she got back to work.
I was pleased that I was getting involved in some of the regular things that happen around the hospital. I think it’s important for chaplains to be an integral part of the institution. The old model of chaplaincy is where the chaplains sits slightly outside the institution and just comes in at moments of crisis. Modern day chaplaincy is about being an allied health care professional and part of the very fabric of the regular patterns of work.
Chaplaincy has always been difficult to evaluate in terms of measurable outputs. Therefore it is hard to prove the effectiveness of a chaplaincy service, being involved in other teams and disciplines shows the versatility that chaplains have and how effective they can be when they embrace the institution and the institution embraces them.
I loved being part of the ethics committee and it always made me smile to be referred to as a "lay" member!
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