Prairie Hills Covenant Church

When I served as a hospital chaplain I would sit in on continuity of care meetings. These were daily meetings in the nurse’s station of each area in the hospital. The meetings brought together hospital administrators, social workers, spiritual care workers, and doctors or nurses. The nurse or doctor would discuss each patient under their care with the rest of the team so that all the patient’s needs could be addressed. In those meetings I learned the significance of the term, “Presenting Problem.” The Presenting Problem was the thing that caused a person to seek medical attention. Presenting Problems are often fairly common health issues; a fever, a persistent cough, headache, shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, and so on. While those Presenting Problems are typically insignificant to a person’s overall health; in these patients those small things where clues to much more significant health issues. Sometimes a persistent cough is a result of a cold, or allergies; but then sometimes it is a result of p