Chaplain Terry Irish, D.Min., knows that sometimes patients want no part of him. When he walks into a hospital room, he may be met with anger, fear or suspicion about religion. And that is okay.
“The chaplain is the only person a patient can tell, ‘I don’t want to see you. Get out of here!’” Irish said. “That’s fine. My task isn’t to go in and change their mind about their beliefs. My role is to be there for them, whatever their faith tradition, and listen.”
 Terry Irish joins City of Hope’s spiritual care team. (Photo by Alicia di Rado) |
More often than not, he ends up doing just that.
Irish is the newest member of City of Hope’s spiritual care team. He started at City of Hope on Sept. 22, joining fellow chaplain Cassie McCarty, M.Div.
Their job is no small one, especially in a busy cancer center.
A 2007 study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that 88 percent of patients with advanced cancer reported that religion was at least somewhat important to them. And an October Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine study of more than 2,200 cancer patients showed that nearly 69 percent prayed for better health.
A growing number of researchers worldwide, including those in City of Hope’s own Division of Nursing Research & Education, are studying the importance of spirituality to cancer patients’ quality of life. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, funds several studies examining spiritual practices and health. This includes spirituality outside of conventional religion.
For Irish and McCarty, spiritual care means not only praying with patients or connecting them with leaders of their own faith, but also ministering to atheists, skeptics and those who are simply lonely.
It is a departure of sorts for Irish, who began his career in the 1970s in local parishes in Missouri.
He got his first experience in health care while still in seminary, when he worked at a medical center with physical and occupational therapy patients. The experience sparked a calling within his calling. Quite simply, he said, “I loved working with patients.”
In the late 1980s, while serving as pastor at a church in Crescent City, Calif., he ministered as a hospice chaplain and founded and directed a community support group that provided care for those in grief.
He began a clinical pastoral education chaplain residency program in the Spiritual Care Department at Stanford Hospital & Clinics (affiliated with Stanford University) in 2006, and now is a provisionally certified chaplain through the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.
McCarty calls Irish “motivated and a team player.”
“I enjoy having him as a partner to bounce ideas off of,” McCarty said. His arrival also means both spiritual counselors can care for more patients. Irish now follows medical oncology and surgical patients, while McCarty cares for hematology and hematopoietic cell transplantation patients.
The team, part of the Sheri & Les Biller Patient and Family Resource Center, now can provide more sessions of “Tea for the Soul,” a special time for nursing, clinical and medical staff in the hospital and clinics to recharge, relax and debrief while enjoying tea, coffee, water and treats. McCarty and Irish also collaborate on events such as the Pediatrics Memorial Service, and hope to grow the spiritual care presence on campus.
Irish is a certified grief counselor through the American Academy of Grief Counseling and a nationally certified bereavement facilitator through the American Academy of Bereavement. He earned his Doctor of Ministry degree from Nazarene Theological Seminary.