Palliative Care: A Chaplain’s Perspective

Rabbi Alvin Fine encapsulated my decades as a hospital chaplain when he wrote, Birth is a beginning And death is a destination. And life is a journey, A sacred pilgrimage— To life everlasting.¹ Life is fragile. Life is short. It is also a journey, a pilgrimage, to eternal life. I have learned this at countless bedsides. My work as a chaplain for nearly fifteen years has deep roots in Christian ministry and the medical profession. I served for twelve years in a local United Methodist church and sixteen years as a registered nurse at Houston Methodist Hospital. The move