The Rev. Linda Strange performs much of her ministry work simply walking down the halls of Denton Regional Medical Center.

It’s not a parish in the usual sense, but Strange and the on-call chaplains at the hospital — the Rev. Harvey Junker and Charles Forshaw — find it to be a mission field where prayers, greetings and sitting quietly with families are integral to medicine.

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Charles Forshaw, left, the Rev. Linda Strange and the Rev. Harvey Junker are chaplains at Denton Regional Medical Center, where they are considered an integral part of the treatment plan for patients. They offer pastoral care to patients of all faiths.

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“Denton Regional Medical Center looks at and cares for the spiritual, mental and emotional part of the patient as well as the physical,” Strange said.

Strange is the full-time chaplain at the hospital and coordinator of spiritual care, with assistance from Junker, a retired minister and nursing home administrator, and Forshaw, a longtime lay leader in his church. The chaplains are contractors to the hospital through the Denton Area Chaplaincy Board, which pays them.

The chaplains serve any patient who’s in the hospital for inpatient care, regardless of religious background. The hospital begins the process at admissions, by giving incoming patients the chance to identify their religion.

Strange makes rounds each weekday, especially in the intensive care unit and the oncology department. All of the chaplains take referrals as well, visiting patients and families who request it.

“Sometimes, it might be as simple as coming by a patient’s room, and if they’re sleeping, leaving my card on the bedside table,” Strange said. “And often, a patient will just say hello, or I can make contact with their minister or pastor to let them know that one of their members is here. A lot of patients are already getting pastoral care from their own minister, or from people in their church.”

Forshaw said a lot of referrals actually come from people visiting friends or family who see the chaplains in a nearby room.

“A family in another room will see me and ask for me to be sent in, and a lot of times, the nurses will sometimes ask us to stop in and see a patient. The nurses really help us quite a bit to see that patients get to see a chaplain,” Forshaw. “And an elevator is a captive audience. A lot of people look at the badge around my neck and say, ‘Oh, you’re a chaplain.’ That happens a lot.”

Pastoral care comes in many forms: sitting with people during hard times, swapping stories or even making small talk, praying with people who are dying or who are losing a loved one, and shepherding people toward a place of deeper understanding.

Christians point to the work of Jesus when they talk about pastoral care, in the moments when he was neither preaching nor teaching, but giving comfort to people in anguish. Pastoral care crosses religious barriers, though, and is often most visible in acts of religious ritual around death and loss.

Junker said pastoral care doesn’t always end when a patient dies.

“When you work with a patient in long-term care, you get to know them,” Junker said. “You even do graveside services sometimes. I had a patient who died, and they had been a long-term resident at a nursing home, and I was asked to speak at their memorial service.”

“That’s true, you do get to know patients and really become a part of their treatment,” Strange said. “When oncology patients go and come back, I’m often there. Depending on what the patients want and need, you’re there sometimes to just talk to them, and sometimes, we say a prayer and lift them up to God.”

Strange is also a member of the hospital’s ethics committee, and is there for patients and families when a critical patient dies. There is prayer, if it is requested.

“One thing I like to do is ask for stories to share around the room. You can laugh together or cry together, and this is something I find to be a source of comfort for the people who have just lost someone,” Strange said.

She said the chaplains also care for staff members. Hospital employees often work during medical crises, when pain and fear can be difficult for both patient and family. Then, there are the staffers who serve critically or terminally ill patients. Those patients often have bonds with their caregivers and families, and loss can be hard for them, too.

Chaplains spend an hour each week in the hospital chapel, ready to talk to or pray for any hospital employee who drops in.

As coordinator of spiritual care, Strange organizes free public workshops at the hospital about grief, pastoral care and other related topics once a year.

Pamela Pedron, a critical care educator at the hospital and director of the cardiac care unit, said the chaplains’ work shouldn’t be underestimated.

“The spiritual care here is very much [an integral] part of the care team, impacting the patient care as well as the family care,” Pedron said. “They are very, very important in that aspect. … Especially in the critical care area, I think it’s even more helpful for the family to have this spiritual care, be it prayer, counseling or in hand-holding. Often, the patients are critically ill, so it really helps the families. Once they’ve gotten in contact with the spiritual care workers, we see the families coping better, we see the families’ anxiety lessen. If it’s a bad situation, you can see their anxiety really lift.”

Pedron said the staff benefits from the chaplains’ service, especially in cases of unexpected loss.

“We had a teenager who died after a drug overdose, after being in the hospital for a while,” she said. “The spiritual care coordinator was able to be there, giving us coping mechanisms.

“I also know from personal experience. One of our own nurses underwent a cancer procedure, and our chaplain went up there with her and talked with her, and she talked about how much that meant to her.”

Pedron has been a nurse for 25 years, and she said hospital teams used to have a sort of tunnel vision, focusing on physical trauma and healing the body.

“I think I’ve seen in my 25 years more done in spiritual care and family care, and I’ve seen growth in that. It’s greatly increased and impacted patient care,” she said. “There’s so much holistic medicine out there now that I think more people realize that there is more to care than treating the body.”

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com .