BY: TERRY VAN SCHAIK
This issue of Health Progress — appearing as it does on the eve of the 86th Catholic Health Assembly, whose theme is "Keeping the Faith: Energizing the Culture of Catholic Health Care" — explores aspects of organizational and ministry culture from several vantage points.
"The Ties That Bind: Considerations in Mergers and Acquisitions," a special section put together by guest editor Mary Kathryn Grant, PhD, looks at the legal climate in which such transactions occur and at both theoretical and practical examples of the way organizations might prepare for, and then live out, the successful joining together of two or more cultures.
In addition, both Rev. Michael D. Place, STD, and Br. Tom Maddix, CSC, Dmin, use personal experiences to describe the essential role of mentors in sustaining, teaching, and transmitting cultural elements that, for those fortunate enough to receive them, so often turn out to build wisdom.
God's Healing through Human Hands
Bishop Anthony M. Pilla asks why people, many of whom find modern existence to be increasingly frustrating and alienating, often choose to come to Catholic health care facilities. They come, he replies, because they are drawn to a culture in which they hope to find God's compassion, comfort, gentleness, and healing issuing from the hands of the people caring for them.
Also Members of the Team
Hospital volunteers and "prehospital" emergency medical service professionals are often forgotten members of the health care community. Articles by Lynette Ballard and Rhoda Weiss ask us to examine ways we might communicate mission and values to such colleagues, thereby involving them as active contributors to our own learning, development, and culture.
Genetics Reprints Available
In response to reader interest, we are making available reprints of "Genetics and Ethics — Issues and Implications of the Human Genome Project," the special section in our March-April issue. Copies are $6 each while supplies last. Call 314-253-3458.
Copyright © 2001 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477.