UCSF Medical Center Spiritual Care Services, Psycho-Oncology and the Symptom Management Service for cancer have won a $250,000 research grant from the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. HealthCare Chaplaincy, a leader in advancing the role of chaplaincy care, recently announced the six recipients chosen from 72 institutions that submitted proposals to identify and explore hypotheses regarding chaplains’ contributions to palliative care.
These Templeton grants are the largest in size and scope for professional chaplaincy. UCSF’s project is for a “Spiritual Assessment and Intervention Model (AIM) in Outpatient Palliative Care for Patients with Advanced Cancer,” led by Dr. Laura Dunn, Rev. Dr. Michele Shields, Chaplain Allison Kestenbaum, Dr. Mike Rabow, Rev. Will Hocker, and Dr. Dan Dohan. Spiritual AIM is the model of spiritual care that has been taught to chaplains and used with patients at UCSF Medical Center for the past seven years. For more information: http://www.healthcarechaplaincy.org/templeton-research-project.html