Rev. Dunbar-Perkins Audio Chaplains 1

Rev. Dunbar-Perkins Audio Chaplains 1

Chaplaincy

I'm a non-threatening entity and, even more importantly, I'm not some Christian trying to get them to believe in Jesus. And that would be the reputation—the two reputations that chaplains have. Most of them over the years, in a hospital setting, have been Christian. So they're worried about, you know, having, telling people at the end of life—you know, they grew up Jewish, they were Jewish, and some chaplain walking into the room saying, 'We've got to make sure you believe in Jesus.' Not really appropriate. Now that's not something that we have in this day and age; I would like to think we don't, bsut that's a reputation that has been over the years. The other thing is, you have to know when to engage patients. Because there's the other reputation that chaplains have. I generally—when I worked at oncology, especially—when a person was newly diagnosed, I generally did not go in the room for at least 24 hours unless they specifically asked for me. Can you imagine why? The doctor comes in and says, 'You have stage IV breast cancer. We're going to be giving you chemo and the treatments and then the next stage is radiology and, you know, and then the doctor leaves the room, and then you show up and say, 'Hi, I'm the chaplain.' And I'm [laughs] and you know, it's like, 'Should I plan your funeral now?' you know, people ... And so you have to measure how you engage people and when you say ... And sometimes I will go in a room and even though I have my name here and it says 'Chaplain,' I gauge when I say I'm the chaplain.

Kevin Dowling

Religion Department (Carleton College)

2013

Sound

.mp3 (image)

C_RevDunbarPerkins.mp3

Minneapolis, MN