The ‘Accidental’ Hospice Chaplain

The Rev. Dr. Missiouri McPhee began her seminary studies to pursue a professional ministry, fulfilling her call as instructed by God. Or so she thought.

“I’m an accidental chaplain,” says McPhee, an ordained African Methodist Episcopal minister who works with Orlando Health, a nonprofit healthcare company based in Florida. A Florida A&M University graduate, McPhee was working on her theology doctorate in Atlanta when a classmate, a chaplain at a hospital in Orlando, told her about an opportunity to work in the Sunshine State. 

“He kept saying to me, ‘Missiouri, you need to come interview with my hospital. You know, we don’t have any Black female chaplains,’” she says. “I simply said to him, ‘And how is that my problem?’”

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“But he kept hounding me for months and months,” she says. “And finally, to get him to shut up, I said, ‘If we graduate — because that was a big ‘if’ — I would come and meet his manager, and do an interview.” 

They did, and she kept her promise. And his hospital, Orlando Health Lucerne, hired her as their newest chaplain to meet the spiritual needs of their patients. 

Called to Hospice

Fast forward a few years, and McPhee found herself taking on work as a hospice chaplain, arguably the most challenging and rewarding specialty in ministry. She currently works in the Central Florida area for VITAS Healthcare, a major provider of hospice and palliative care.

Although she was qualified — McPhee holds advanced theological degrees — she still felt unprepared for that first job with Orlando Health. That feeling that hit her as she drove to Miami for an interim job, teaching at St. Thomas University: “I said to myself, ‘I don’t know nothing about being nobody’s chaplain!’” 

But she did have her Clinical Pastoral Education credits — qualifying her to minister to those in healthcare clinics or hospitals — and a willingness to learn. So she soaked up everything she could about the health issues of her patients, most of whom were in geriatric or long-term care. She took courses on dementia and studied conditions like traumatic brain injury in case she had to comfort patients at a rehabilitation center.  

A Different Skill Set

Unlike a pastor leading a church or ministering to a congregation every Sunday, hospice care calls on different skill sets. That includes being constantly on call to comfort the sick and dying and preparing a family for the death of a loved one.

“What’s different with hospice is when people come, you know they’ve tried everything they absolutely could,” she says. 

McPhee began her career during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when all manner of people, from elderly to children and even colleagues, were at risk of dying. Before the vaccine was developed, she says, the dying included people who seemed otherwise healthy. 

“People would walk into the hospital laughing, talking, joking with you, and literally in a matter of hours, they would be gone,” she says. “And then you’d see the devastation left behind: orphaned children, spouses without their mates and mothers without their children. There was also the heartbreak of seeing colleagues contract COVID and begin the fight for their own lives.” 

As a single mother she had to care for herself: ”For nine months, I slept in a tent on my back porch to keep from contaminating my son,” she says.

When the Patient Is a Child

Perhaps the biggest challenge is when the hospice patient is a child, McPhee says. It’s hard for families to let go, she says, “simply because they are children and no one wants to give up on children and no one wants to see children transition.”

But there is support, including a care team consisting of a social worker, a chaplain, a registered nurse, and a pediatric physician. The team, she says, “meets every two weeks to discuss our patients and their family situations.”

As a chaplain, McPhee says her role is to help patients and loved ones not just as a part of the care team, but part of the family, which “is a delicate balance.” Reading the room is an acquired but necessary skill. 

“I always say chaplaincy is part science, part art, and part discernment,” she says. “You’ve got to be able to understand when it is not appropriate to talk about making funeral plans, even though you know what’s coming.”

“I’ve gone to homes and found a sink full of dishes,” McPhee says. “Nobody has asked me to wash dishes, but you can tell when the family is overwhelmed. I’ve gone to homes and prepared a meal because mom or dad hadn’t had anything solid to eat in days. They are just so overwhelmed.”

At that moment, “nobody needs a prayer from me. What they need is a hot meal. Or they need me to say, ‘I’m here now. Why don’t you go in and take a shower? I’ll watch the kid.”

The Ministry of Presence

But McPhee admits it isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. 

“I will be the first to tell you that it is heavy work,” she says. “It is spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and at times physically exhausting. You become their family because you are the only other person who can truly understand or even have an inkling of understanding of what they’re going through.”

She compares the work of compassion to the life of Hank, her family dog, “who will be whoever in the house is sick. And he has this presence,” McPhee says. “He’ll just sit there by you, lay on the couch with you, or lay in the bed with you. And he will not leave your side until he is assured that you are doing better.” 

That sort of work — “the ministry of presence,” McPhee calls it — “is underrated,” she says. “As I tell people, folks don’t need me to pray for them. If they ask, certainly I will pray. But I’ve been around long enough to know that people who say they believe in God, they know how to pray for themselves.”

This post originally appeared on Word In Black on July 25, 2025.