BRONX, NY – Calvary Hospital hosted its 10th annual Spiritual Care Day – “Sacred Encounters: Bridging Hope and Faith” – at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan on Oct. 19.
Calvary Hospital is the nation’s only fully accredited acute care specialty hospital devoted exclusively to providing palliative care to adult patients with advanced cancer and other life-limiting illnesses.
This year’s Spiritual Care Day was a milestone event in that it was the first time that the hospital collaborated with Fordham’s Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center and the Collaborative for Palliative Care. The audience was comprised of more than 100 chaplains, nurses, social workers and other health care professionals from throughout the greater New York area.
Event highlights included:
– Sister Kathleen Deignan, C.N.D., Ph.D., director of the Spirituality Institute, and professor of religious studies at Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y., who spoke on “Dialogues about Spirituality: Perspectives of Thomas Merton.”
– Dr. Mark P. Freeman, professor and chair, department of psychology and distinguished professor of ethics and society, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Ma., who spoke on “The Sacred Beauty of Finite Life: Encountering the Changing Face of the Other.”
– Dr. Michael J. Brescia, executive medical director, Calvary Hospital, who spoke on “The Concept of Sacred Space,” and highlighted the hospital’s unique mission and history.
Experts led workshops such as: mindfulness/complementary clinical modalities; sacred space/concept of home for patients near the end of life; research concepts: spirituality and healthcare outcomes; psychological suffering and delirium at the end of life; and medical aid-in-dying.
Over 6,000 patients are cared for annually by Calvary’s inpatient, home care and hospice services. Inpatient care is offered both in the Bronx and at the Brooklyn Satellite at NYU Lutheran in Sunset Park.
