Outpatient pastoral counseling in a medical center.

Abstract

The North Carolina Baptist Hospital, a teaching hospital of the Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest College, employed a minister to work intensively with inpatients as a member of the faculty of the medical school. The outstanding advantage of locating a pastoral counseling service in a medical center is the availability of medical resources. Here comprehensive medicine provides a team approach to the individual. Counseling is a religious process in which the individual is helped to realize more nearly the full potentials of his own personality. A promising development that has grown out of this program has been the opportunity for research. It is in this area that institutional chaplains can render a real contribution to the parish minister who lacks the time and does not usually have access to the findings of specialized professional people.