Category: Research

• December 5, 2017

  Importance of End of Life Training

  Dr. Saul Ebema Patient #1 had just been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor when I first met him. At 42 years old, he was still a young man with two children aged eight and six years. I met his wife by the bedside trying to comfort him. His two children had been taken to…
• November 29, 2017

  Spiritual History in Hospice Care

  Kenny McCarthy. Spiritual history-taking is the process of interviewing a patient in order to come to a better understanding of their spiritual needs and resources. A spiritual history can be integrated into existing formats such as the social history section of the clinical database. Compared to screening, history-taking uses a broader set of questions to…
• November 21, 2015

  Depression in Terminal Illness

  Saul Ebema, D.Min. Depression is another emotion that the dying person experiences. It is a normal reaction to death and dying. It could be triggered by different factors as the terminally ill patient begins to contemplate death. I remember visiting a hospice patient who was suffering from depression.  I began to talk with him, exploring…
• July 25, 2015

  Major Psychological Issues that affect Hospice patients

  Saul Ebema, D.Min. There are many psychological issues that affect the terminally ill under hospice care. Some of these issues are; Depression                 Depression is another emotion that the dying person experiences. It is a normal reaction to death and dying. It could be triggered by different factors as the terminally ill patient begins to…
• July 22, 2015

  The Skilled Chaplain

  Saul Ebema, D.Min.     In the book, “The Skilled Pastor: Counseling as the Practice of Theology”, Taylor writes that “the way to help persons deal with their problems is to help them change the beliefs that contribute to their distressing feelings and behaviors”. I find this quote from Taylor to be true because skilled…
• July 17, 2015

  Understanding Death Anxiety Among Hospice Patients

  Saul Ebema, D.Min. In ministering to the dying, pastoral counselors will encounter some major spiritual and emotional issues the terminally ill patients experience as death nears and one of the major issues is ‘death anxiety”. Carpenito-Moyet, defines death anxiety as “the state in which an individual experiences apprehension, worry, or fear related to death and…
• July 2, 2015

  Knowledge of Death as a Crisis in Hospice Care

  By Dr. Saul Ebema. One of my friends used to have dizzy spells that often came and went. He decided to go to the doctor to have some tests done on him in order find out what was wrong with him. The results of the tests indicated that he had brain tumor that had metastasized…
• June 29, 2015

  Spiritual care for the terminally Ill Cancer Patients

  Saul Ebema, D.Min. During my experience working with terminally ill patients as a Hospice Chaplain, I have noticed that the major concerns of terminally ill cancer patients with a prognosis of six months or less are existential, spiritual, familial, physical, and emotional issues. Several patients I have worked with over the years expressed the fact…