The 19 members of Pastoral Services at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center do more than offer prayers for the dying. Their work is for the living. While they are often the keepers of the medical center’s grief, they are also comforters, messengers and finders of families. They are the heart and soul.
So a chaplain is sent out from the church or sent out from the religious organization to work in a secular environment or a place where people are displaced from their center of their religious life.
My name is David Simmons. I'm the director of pastoral care here at Hershey Medical Center. Chaplains are often found in prisons. They're found in nursing homes. They're found in hospice centers or hospitals, military service to help people get the religious services they need while they are separated from the central heartbeat of their religious organizations.
Chaplaincy at Hershey Medical Center is unique from other institutions and organizations in that we seek to be a clinically integrated service. We're there to work alongside the physicians, the nurses, the social workers to help design the plan of care for a patient so that we can help to promote the values and beliefs that the patient or family members have, especially as they impact the plane of care and the way decisions are made about the treatment plan ahead.