When Vincent Bain receives his Master of Bioethics from Harvard Medical School this May, he will be headed to a new assignment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center—one of the few officers in the U.S. Army to serve as a chaplain bioethicist.
“The Harvard bioethics program gave me the opportunity to qualify for this unique slot,” said Bain, an Army major with 13 years’ experience in the military chaplaincy.
His HMS capstone project, however, went beyond the military framework. Instead, it focused on chaplain participation on health care ethics committees in hospital settings.
Benefits of bioethics training
He found that chaplains are largely underutilized by hospitals in making bioethical decisions. In fact, the survey he created and circulated among HMS-affiliated hospitals showed that chaplains were serving on only 22 percent of bioethics committees. Other professionals represented on these committees include clinicians, social workers, and attorneys working as a team.
The study also showed that among the factors that could promote full chaplain participation in the process was if a chaplain had received training in bioethics, such as the master’s program offered by HMS, which immerses students in the dynamics of health care procedures and therapeutic choices.
“Medical cases can be very complicated, with no case like another,” said Bain. “The goal is to help patients and their families make their own decisions, sometimes in a very limited amount of time. For example, with decisions about end-of-life care a chaplain’s spiritual guidance is often pivotal.”
Circuitous path
Today, a distinguished chaplain in the military, Bain nearly missed embarking on his Army career path. As a young adult, he first worked in the fiberoptics industry, then later decided to pursue ministerial studies, receiving a bachelor’s in Christian ministry from Crown College in Minnesota and a Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
Near the end of his seminary studies, a military recruiter came to the campus, and Bain jumped at the opportunity to join the Army chaplaincy.
Then reality hit. Specific educational and experience requirements had to be completed before age 40. By the time Bain received his ministry degree, he would miss the Army’s deadline by four months because he would be over the age limit.
So, he served as a parish pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Winona, Minnesota, believing the door to the military chaplaincy was closed to him forever.
Five years later, however, Bain got a call from the Army.
“They needed to respond to the surge years in the Middle Eastern war on terror and wanted to know if I were still interested in the chaplaincy,” Bain said.
After officer’s training, he was commissioned in 2009.
At that point, the world opened up to him. Born in Illinois, Bain already was accustomed to moving around the country because of his father’s career in the railroad industry. His military assignments would now take him to Army bases on the other side of the globe—Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Bain also served stateside at Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. During an assignment at Fort Campbell in Kentucky with the 101st Airborne Division, the division honored him with its chaplain of the year award in 2018.
Celebrating the 2022 Graduates
Read more profiles of some of Harvard Medical School’s remarkable graduates and watch livestreams of ceremonies for master’s, MD/DMD, and PhD graduations.
In 2021, Bain completed PhD studies in leadership at Concordia University Chicago in Illinois. His thesis there focused on why officers leave the service, rather than staying for their entire career.
His study found that half of all officers left the Army before 10 years, largely because they originally had no intention of staying. Chaplains, he thought, might be able to guide officers through these life-changing decisions and adjustments.
“Military chaplaincy is extremely different from parish work,” he said. “In the parish, the rhythm runs from Sunday to Sunday. In the military, a chaplain is a spiritual advisor and staff officer who receives orders from a commander. A chaplain goes to wherever the soldiers are doing their jobs, without actually doing their jobs, as it’s strictly a non-combatant role.”
Soldiers generally are assigned to a formation for three years, so each year, one-third of the personnel who can potentially be under a chaplain’s spiritual care are new.
The range of counseling services offered by chaplains, he said, include helping soldiers deal with adjustment issues, relationship problems, post-traumatic stress, and morale issues, along with providing spiritual guidance and worship services.
When needed, a chaplain has the power to advocate directly to the commander for a soldier, bypassing the standard chain of command. No other lower-ranking officer is afforded this unique role, he said.
Considering a chaplain’s skills in advocacy and counseling, as well as their experience in critical thinking and helping individuals handle personal dilemmas, Bain believes the profession is well suited to hospital settings.
Guiding soldiers and patients
In the one-year bioethics master’s program at HMS, Bain gained a greater understanding of the role that each HMS affiliate hospital’s institutional review board plays in reviewing clinical studies, protecting the interests of patients, and helping individuals make informed decisions.
Also, this past year, Bain and his wife, Paulette, enjoyed a stimulating life in Boston. For the first time in their marriage, he said, they were empty nesters, having successfully navigated their four children into adulthood. They are now planning a move to the Bethesda, Maryland, area.
At Walter Reed, Bain will guide soldiers who are experiencing health care issues arising from injuries and medical conditions that affect the general population.
“For soldiers, having the autonomy to make their own health care decisions can strike them as unusual, because they’re used to following orders,” Bain said. “Some of the choices they’re presented can be very difficult, as they may be career-ending, for example, the trauma of limb amputation.”
With the newfound perspectives he’s gained in his graduate studies at HMS, Bain hopes to expand his preliminary research findings, as he believes chaplains are largely an untapped resource, particularly in hospitals in smaller and more rural communities.
“Despite having the professional skills and appropriate training to enhance the work of health care ethics committees, chaplains’ participation has been limited,” he said. “I hope a more extensive future study will help break down those barriers.”
