Magee offers spiritual care support to patients and family members.
October 20 – 26, 2019 marks National Spiritual Care Week, giving organizations an opportunity to recognize their spiritual caregivers and the ministry which the caregivers provide.
Magee Rehabilitation Hospital – Jefferson Health recognizes personal faith plays an important role for many people who are coping with illness and recovery, and it strives to provide an environment in which patients feel comfortable practicing their faith tradition. Magee is committed to each patient’s holistic care. All patients have the right to practice their own personal faith beliefs or to practice no personal faith while receiving services at Magee. Patients are encouraged to invite their pastor, rabbi, priest, imam, minister or other religious leader to share spiritual enrichment with them and their families while at Magee. Magee offers spiritual care support to patients and family members. A visit from a chaplain can be requested by notifying the patient’s case manager or Guest Services. All visits are personal and confidential. Magee also offers interfaith services in the Spirituality Center on Wednesdays and Sundays.
Magee’s Spirituality Center, located on the sixth floor, offers spiritual reading materials for patients, families and visitors on topics such as: chronic pain, spinal cord injuries, caring for injured loved ones, and faith and healing. Additional spiritual resources in the Spirituality Center include: Old and New Testament, Psalms, The Quran. Contact Magee’s Concierge Services to access to personal meditation and guided imagery resources, Reiki practitioners, other religious guides and prayer books, and for outreach to other faith communities.
The Creative Therapy Center and Healing Gardens on the sixth floor rooftop also offer a refuge and quiet place for patients and their families during their stay at Magee. Click here to learn more.
Meet the Chaplains
Kristopher T. Halsey D.Div, PhD has worked in the healthcare industry for over 20 years. He has an extensive background working as a clinical chaplain, providing spiritual and psychosocial support to patients and their families at the end of life. He currently holds the position of Bereavement Services Manager and is the co-Chairman of the Ethics committee for a local hospice provider, serving the greater Philadelphia area. He also works per diem at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital as a Spiritual Care provider. He is an active faculty/staff member for The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC), a national specialized educational initiative to improve palliative care. In 2007, he founded a local community church in Philadelphia in which he currently serves as the Senior Pastor.
Dr. Halsey holds degrees in Theology and Pastoral Psychology. He is a sought after conference speaker specializing in topics relating to End of Life Care, Loss Grief & Bereavement, Compassion Fatigue, Medical Ethics and Spiritual Care in Healthcare. He has also appeared as a guest on numerous radio broadcasts and has written an article for a national Hospice Care magazine. Dr. Halsey has a passion to see lives change and to lend a helping hand to those in need. He lives with this life’s principle: “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life!”
Sherry Chandler is a native of the Philadelphia area. Sherry was born the youngest of twins. She is a product of a Catholic education and a graduate of West Catholic Girls High School. After high school, Sherry became a respiratory therapist and worked at several center city hospitals including Thomas Jefferson University and University of Pennsylvania Hospitals.
Sherry completed her undergraduate degree and master’s degree from Temple University. During her graduate studies, she was an NIH advanced degree student whose focus of research were the concerns of families who were homeless. She later received Post graduate certification at PCOM for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and provided clinical Social Work and therapy services at a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for over two decades and maintain a small group of private therapy patients as a Pennsylvania licensed therapist.
Parallel to Sherry’s career as a Social Worker, she graduated from St. Charles Seminary lay ministry program and functioned as a lay minister and Eucharistic minister at St. Benedict’s parish and currently at St. James parish in Elkins Park where she and her family now reside.
Sherry graduated with a Master’s degree in Theology with a Pastoral Care focus from LaSalle University and attended the St. Mary’s CPE program. Sherry was an intern at Holy Redeemer Hospital where the focus of her Chaplain experience was ICU, NICU and Rehab Units and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden, NJ. Sherry brings to her Chaplaincy a desire and commitment to serve the needs of those who are ill and or dying.
