Care and Compassion at the Next Level By S. Patricia Wittberg
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mong the many types of educational ministries in which the Sisters of Charity have served has been the training of health care professionals. Nursing schools were begun in each of our hospitals soon after they were built; by 1910, Sisters were instructing student nurses in all but one of these institutions. Other instructional programs were often added to the courses of study that the hospitals offered: at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, for example, the Sisters also taught X-Ray technology, medical technology, and dietetics courses. The College of Mount St. Joseph also offered a degree in medical technology in which our Sisters taught. The ministry of educating health care professionals continues today. S. Montiel Rosenthal, MD, is in her 18th year as a member of the core residency faculty for The Christ Hospital/University of Cincinnati Family Medicine Residency S. Montiel Rosenthal (right) enjoys teaching and training the next generation of Family Medicine physicians. program. As clinical professor, she helps teach and train the next generation of S. Montiel says that the mothers in the Centering Family Medicine physicians. She also teaches the medical Pregnancy Program “draw on the power and wisdom of the school students from the University of Cincinnati College of group” in addressing questions about the physical discomforts Medicine, as well as midwifery, physician assistant and nurse of pregnancy, labor and delivery, breastfeeding, and infant practitioner students who have clinical rotations in her office. care. One woman, who had not breastfed her first baby but had done so with her second, told her Centering Pregnancy S. Montiel’s particular area of interest is helping improve group how the first had almost died while the second was the mental and physical health of expectant mothers and healthy and thriving. “And I will breastfeed this one,” she said their babies, especially the most socially and economically emphatically, patting her belly. Her story persuaded vulnerable ones. She wants to “discover the best medical every other mom in the group to breastfeed. “They would practices and take them to the next level” of care. Hamilton not have listened to me as much as they listened to her,” County has, she says, an “obscenely high” infant mortality S. Montiel concluded. In another group, a formerly rate among its African-American population. She and the withdrawn and sullen teenaged mom volunteered that not resident physicians she teaches work with Cradle Cincinnati only did she now know how to calm her sister’s fussy baby as to give mothers and babies a healthier start. She also helps a result of the Centering Pregnancy class, she had also taught lead sessions of The Christ Hospital’s “Centering Pregnancy her sister how to do so, wagging her finger with “And you Program” in which 10 to 12 expectant mothers and their support persons gather together with the residents and faculty NEVER shake the baby.” Many of The Christ Hospital’s residents continue to be committed to caring for the for 11 times before and after their deliveries to share the underserved and for vulnerable women after they complete stories, experiences, hopes, and concerns they may have. their three years of training. Several have established group 6
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