St. James the Greater
Patron Saint of those with arthritis and rheumatism.
Patron Saint of those with arthritis and rheumatism.
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| Painting of James the Greater by Salvador Dali |
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Summer Check In . . .or Out?
Suddenly it's July and it's summer for real and I'm not seeing a lot of headline-grabbing news that highlights the health-faith connection. A verdict has been handed down in the Oregon faith-healing case. Looks like a lawsuit brought by a coalition of Jews and Muslims against San Francisco's circumcision ban may cut that initiative from the ballot in November. What else?
I find it interesting that my most trusted and content-rich feeds don't seem to be delivering much news these days. Having monitored this arena for a while, I can tell you that news and commentary is normally quite abundant. I'm hoping this sudden lull is due to summer schedules rather than lack of interest.
What do you think might be going on? All theories are welcome.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Hospitality: What Is In a Name?
Editor's Note: Today's guest post is by Marie-Michelle Strah, PhD (@cyberslate), an enterprise architect specializing in collaborative technologies and communities of practice, specifically Microsoft technologies and SharePoint for government, healthcare, not-for-profits and associations. A former Army Medical Service Corps officer, she developed healthcare communications training (called “Hospitality Training” from the German) for American hospitals abroad to address care in multilingual settings and to meet the specific needs of Wounded Warriors. She blogs at http://lifeincapslock.com.
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A recent article on healthcare communications reported that when surveyed, people overwhelmingly preferred the term “hospital” to “medical center.” “Hospitals” were viewed as having better quality care, staff and level of cutting edge expertise. No reasons for the preference in terms given. That begs the question: what’s in a name? Would the same results have been generated if the comparison was with “clinic” or “urgent care” or “treatment facility”?
The “warm and fuzzies” may, as the article suggested, be due to habit. We are visually habituated to seeing the “blue H” signs. In English, we’re linguistically habituated. We say “he has to go into [the] hospital” but not “she has to go into the medical center.”
However the word hospital denotes not just a physical facility, but connotes a linguistic and psychic place that is easily referenced and part of our idiomatic usage.
Is this just a locution? Consider that it may be a spiritual one as well.
Modern day hospitals evolved from the medieval tradition of granting “hospitality” to weary travelers on pilgrimage to sacred places or injured soldiers on crusades in the Holy Land. The Knights Hospitaller, attached to a hospital in Jerusalem, were the precursors of modern day combat medics in field hospitals, providing battlefield and trauma medicine, such as it was.
While formal, regulated and structured hospitals obviously did not exist as such, the idea of “place away” from war to heal and recover was born. Sanctioned by the Catholic Church, these “temporary way stations” (the French “hotel” refers to structures less formal than castles or palaces) provided not only respite, but also served as quasi-governmental centers of public health.
Chivalric orders such as the Knights Hospitaller and others came to take on more monastic, militaristic or political roles based on their Order. Still, the fundamental precepts of their origin was to provide respite or hospitality.
Christian charity (or caritas) has its roots in Hebrew Scripture commandments to provide hospitality to foreigners (Exodus and Leviticus). While this can mean food and shelter, it has been extended to mean care, comfort and when needed, healing – physical or spiritual.
Christian charity (or caritas) has its roots in Hebrew Scripture commandments to provide hospitality to foreigners (Exodus and Leviticus). While this can mean food and shelter, it has been extended to mean care, comfort and when needed, healing – physical or spiritual.
So, what’s in a name?
The term “hospital” draws upon a significant historical and spiritual tradition going back thousands of years, one providing moral and ethical imperatives to care as well as strong religious and ideological overtones. Neologisms like “medical center” simply do not have these connotations or the same rich history as the term “hospital.” Perhaps this is something we know at a deeper level.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
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