Paul Galchutt

Paul Galchutt

Discipline: Chaplain
Funding awarded to: Rush University Medical Center

Serious Illness Curriculum for Chaplain Clinical Notes

To create a serious illness curriculum toward increasing the knowledge and best practices for writing clinical notes among chaplains and chaplain students. It will first lead to a curriculum draft to be pilot tested within Transforming Chaplaincy, the national leader in translating spiritual care evidence into practice. Transforming Chaplaincy also has over one thousand members in their interprofessional network dedicated to spiritual care within palliative care. The project will also create national chaplain clinical note writing guidelines to go alongside implementing the revised curriculum. Through Transforming Chaplaincy, the guidelines and curriculum will be broadly disseminated throughout the U.S.

Within this proposed project, chaplains will more skillfully engage in the work of caring for those with serious illness. Culture change is necessary within palliative care related to the growth of spiritual care, not only among chaplains, but interprofessional partners as well. One of the key facets of early palliative care in this modern era involved people like Dame Cicely Saunders, Balfour Mount, and Florence Wald prioritizing the integration of spiritual care. When spiritual care becomes a standard and routinely integrated priority, other crucial elements of palliative care will be strengthened.