Granger E. Westberg

In 1939 Westberg began his career as a parish pastor and brought a dying church in Bloomington, Illinois, back to life. It was a rich experience but it was to be his last position as parish pastor.

In the early 1940s, when most of the few existing hospital chaplains were part-time elderly ministers, young Westberg saw the potential for clergy making a more significant contribution to the care of patients. Traditionally chaplains handed out religious pamphlets and prayed with as many patients as possible. Westberg thought that appropriately educated chaplains could have meaningful conversations with patients and their families and that they could provide an important perspective as part of a health care team. When the chaplain at Augustana Hospital in Chicago retired, Westberg applied for the job. His mentors cautioned Westberg that he was throwing away a promising career in the ministry. After some changes in the job description, Westberg accepted the position as full-time chaplain at Augustana.

Before starting work, Westberg took six months to prepare himself. Like most ministers, Westberg's education had been highly theoretical and classroom-based with little help in developing needed practical skills, such as counseling. So Westberg took hands-on courses with pioneers in the new field of clinical pastoral education, such as Anton Boisen at Elgin State Hospital and Rollin Fairbanks at Massachusetts General Hospital. Russell Dicks, who with physician, Richard Cabot, had written the important book, The Art of Ministering to the Sick,[3] had recently moved to Chicago. Dicks, who was chaplain at a nearby hospital, was Westberg's mentor and quickly became his collaborator and friend. At their hospitals, Dicks and Westberg created popular, intensive courses in pastoral care for ordained ministers, chaplains, and seminarians. Both were part of creating organizations, such as the Association of Protestant Hospital Chaplains (later called the College of Chaplains) that set standards and accreditation policies for hospital chaplains.

At the time Westberg was at Augustana Hospital, many nurses around the country were often treated as "handmaidens" to doctors. By working closely with nurses, Westberg was persuaded that nurses made a significant contribution to patient care. Rather than being in the demeaning role of handmaiden, Westberg thought nurses should be part of the health care team. Based on a curriculum he developed and taught for Augustana's School of Nursing, Westberg wrote a book called Nurse, Pastor, and Patient.[4] In 1951 Westberg became chaplain of the University of Chicago Clinics. His work with students and faculty members in both theology and medicine led in 1956 to him being given a joint appointment in both the Chicago Divinity School and the school of medicine at the University of Chicago.[2] Westberg continued focusing on religion and health and a team approach to health care, using strategies such as interdisciplinary case conferences.[5] He also wrote and talked about what he called "whole-person care".

In 1962 Westberg's interest in the grief process resulted in his writing Good Grief, a book that is still selling well more than 50 years after its first publication. At the time of Westberg's death, the work had sold more than 2.4 million copies and was the top-selling book in the history of Augsburg Fortress, the official publisher of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.[6] In 1964 Westberg became the dean of the Institute of Religion, which was located in the heart of the Texas Medical Center in Houston and linked to five Texas seminaries, providing a graduate program in pastoral care and counseling. With an academic appointment as professor of medicine and religion in the Department of Psychiatry of Baylor College of Medicine, Westberg tried to build more interaction between doctors and ministers. In addition to the seminarians existing clinical experiences in hospitals, he introduced clinical experiences for seminarians in churches.

Westberg argued that seminarians should have clinical experiences throughout their theological education. A few years later, as a professor at Hamma School of Theology (now Trinity Lutheran Seminary, he was able to help nudge the Hamma curriculum in this direction. At Hamma he also responded to the national need for more preventive and primary care by creating a model "neighborhood church-based clinic", where physicians, pastoral counselors, nurses, seminarians and medical students and community volunteers provided needed care.

In the early 1970s when Westberg moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he worked with a team in creating several "wholistic health centers".[7] Like the church-based clinics in Springfield, they focused on prevention, whole-person care, and the church as a healing community. Increasingly it was clear that nurses were key members of the health team. Westberg remained at UIC until 1981.[8]

In the mid 1980s, when most of his peers were retiring, Westberg launched the parish nurse project in which nurses, each based in one or more churches, used their talents and the talents of others in the congregation to promote health, prevent illness, and care for those in need.[9] The program began at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois.[8] Established as a three-year program through a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the operation began with six registered nurses.[10]