Care for the caregiver
Annual wholeness conference focuses on the caregiver
 Robert Orr, MD (left), director of clinical ethics, Fletcher Allen Health Care, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, listens as a conference participant provides insight regarding a question during the Q&A session following Dr. Orr's presentation. David R. Larson, DMin, PhD (right), director, Center for Christian Bioethics, looks on. |
Each year, the Center for Spiritual Life & Wholeness and the Center for Christian Bioethics sponsor a Spiritual Life and Bioethics Conference. This year, the conference, titled "Care for the Caregiver: Who Really Cares?" was held February 11 and 12 in the Wong Kerlee International Conference Center.
More than 170 health-care professionals took part in the conference including chaplains, nurses, physicians, social workers, educators, administrators, and students.
"For me," says Wil Alexander, PhD, founding director, Center for Spiritual Life & Wholeness, "watching the conference unfold, speaker after speaker, I saw individuals who were taking a look at their own careers to help others understand
that caregivers need care as well." According to Dr. Alexander, the conference was designed to respond to the increasing pressures on health-care professionals to do more with fewer resources and in less time, resulting in stressful pain and frequent burnout.
"Patients, clients, colleagues, families, and even communities are affected adversely in the physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual dimensions of existence when the health-care giver becomes a wounded healer," adds Dr. Alexander.
Dr. Alexander; David R. Larson, DMin, PhD, director, Center for Christian Bioethics; and Gerald R. Winslow, PhD, special assistant to the president for spiritual life & wholeness, LLU, and dean, Faculty of Religion, served as moderators for the conference sessions.
Speakers for the conference were Dr. Alexander; Joan Coggin, MD, MPH, special assistant to the president for international affairs, LLU; Barbara Couden, RN, MFT, graduate student at the University of Minnesota; Marsha Fowler, PhD, RN, professor, Graduate School of Theology and School of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University; David Hilfiker, MD, Joseph's House, Washington, D.C.; James Londis, PhD, director of ethics and corporate integrity, Kettering Medical Center Network, Dayton, Ohio; Robert Orr, MD, director of clinical ethics, Fletcher Allen Health Care, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington; Kenneth Pargament, PhD, director of clinical training, department of psychology, Bowling Green State University, Ohio; and Clarence Schilt, DMin, senior pastor, Moscow Seventh-day Adventist Church, Idaho.
The conference was designed to identify the wounds in caregiving, analyze the predisposing causes for woundedness, share research approaches and results on care topics, and discuss caregiving approaches and preventive strategies for future caring.
The conference was sponsored and funded by Adventist Health, Roseville; Adventist Healthcare; Association of Professional Chaplains; Azusa Pacific University School of Nursing; Kettering Medical Center; Loma Linda Physicians Medical Group; LLU department of family medicine; LLUMC; LLUMC staff development; LLU School of Medicine office of continuing medical education; Shawnee Mission Health System, Shawnee Mission, Kansas; as well as LLU School of Allied Health Professions, School of Dentistry, School of Medicine, and School of Nursing.
Next year's conference is scheduled for March and will feature keynote speaker Ira Byock, MD, director, Palliative Care Service, Missoula, Montana. Dr. Byock is author of the book, Dying Well, and will discuss ethical and spiritual issues regarding palliative care at the end of life.
[Top]