The Chaplain & The Doctor

Betty Clark is an 80-year-old, African American chaplain on staff at The Wilma Chan Highland Hospital Campus, the level-one trauma center in Oakland, California. Jessica Zitter is a white Jewish physician who has been Betty’s colleague on the Palliative Care service for over a decade. The two women are an unlikely team: chaplains and doctors do not usually pair up within the hierarchical and siloed halls of the hospital. But with time, the two women’s shared values and history overcome the forces that keep them apart, and they go on to do their best work together. THE CHAPLAIN & THE DOCTOR models a new kind of care, one that honors both spirit and body, the diverse backgrounds of patients, and the most human needs we all share.