The Navy Medicine Religious Ministry team held their annual interprofessional training symposium June 6 - 8 at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth.

This year's spirituality and wellness training focused on improving spiritual care to service members with post-traumatic stress disorders and traumatic brain injury.

The goal of the symposium was to stress the importance of bringing spirituality into the healing process. The symposium was open to chaplains and healthcare providers to help them understand how spirituality can affect healthcare outcomes.

According to the Chaplain of Navy Medicine, Capt. Dale White, a study of civilian patients analyzed 250 family conferences with medical professionals.

"With those 250 patients, they asked if faith and religion were important," White said. "About 200 said yes, faith is important to us and should be important in the discussion of our treatment. However, only 40 people reported that faith was ever addressed by the medical staff. Of those 40, only 16 were physician initiated.
"These types of training events are held in order to continue to strengthen the tie between treatment and health, with spirituality," White added.

The first day consisted of welcoming chaplains and residents who are new to Navy Medicine. According to White, specialized training venues are offered because as a chaplain in Navy Medicine, they can walk into some difficult situations.

"In the past chaplains went and just visited," White said. "We were taught that we go in, read a scripture, we pray and then we leave. Well, that may not be helpful and sometimes prayer can signal to patients that the visit is over. We were also taught to visit every patient, but that may not be helpful.

According to White, chaplains are very intentional in their rounds and their visits, about who they are going to see, and what they are there for.

"Together with medical professionals, we chart and they can make a notation that they have been treating a patient and they sense there may be some spiritual need through spiritual questions that are asked."

During the second day, training was open to nurses, doctors and any healthcare provider to tie in the importance of spirituality with wellness. Guest speakers explained theories and methods in which they have explored with patients.

During her presentation, guest speaker Dr. Nancy Dietsch mentioned that when faith is not addressed during the healing process, some may never fully recover.

Her presentation, "Spirituality for Soul Healing: An Integrative Approach Using Logotherapy," spoke about using a variety of therapies, including art therapy, to understand how one engages with others. Logotherapy is the pursuit of meaning for one's life.
"In using logotherapy, one is bringing an approach of wholeness to enable the wounds to be experienced and transformed into meaning," Dietsch said.

Dr. Jesse Logan, another guest speaker, introduced the importance of caring for caretakers in his presentation of "The Warrior Behind The Warrior: Caring for the Intimate Caregiver." Logan spoke about experiences of care giving spouses of combatants with traumatic brain injuries and how these spouses maintained their resilience.

"They are caring for the loved one who has been injured, so he talked about how we care for that family member," White said. "Let's not forget the spouses, the caregivers, the fiancees who are giving so much of their time and energy and the best that they can to care for them."

According to White, being in Navy Medicine requires bold and courageous chaplains because "When we go to war, we are going with Marines and Sailors who have signed on, who know the risks. If they are injured, or worse, if they make the ultimate sacrifice, it's not easy to be in the midst of that, but it's anticipated.

"In Navy Medicine, we're going to be working with people who are facing things they didn't sign up for," White said. "Chaplains need to be a lighthouse in a very stormy harbor."

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For more news from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, visit www.navy.mil/.