A Jewish Perspective on Spiritual Care in the NICU
Sarah Kolar, MDiv Candidate, University of Chicago Divinity School, Research Fellow, Program on Medicine and Religion, Chicago, IL

Chaplaincy research has steadily grown since Tom O’Connor and Elizabeth Meakes first wrote about evidence-based pastoral care in the late 1990s. While most of the published research on healthcare chaplaincy has focused on oncology and palliative care contexts, acute settings like the neonatal ICU has been understudied. How do the spiritual needs of the NICU differ from other healthcare contexts? What is the model of spiritual care in the NICU and how does this compare to models found in other hospital contexts? How might my religious commitments as a Jew inform ideas about chaplain interventions and outcomes worth measuring? In effect, what does Judaism-informed evidence-based pastoral care look like? From empirical to theological, these are the kinds of questions that frame my case study of spiritual care for underserved populations in the neonatal ICU at one Midwest academic medical center. In this talk, I will explore the contention that compared to other clinical settings, the neonatal ICU setting in an underserved community context poses unique challenges that may necessitate a different model for patient-centered provision of spiritual care to patients and their families.