BY: ED GIGANTI
Health Progress, CHA’s 93-year-old journal, is a unique publication examining the realities of health care through the lens of Catholic teaching. The journal is an important conduit of critical thinking and innovation reaching across — and beyond — the Catholic health ministry in the United States. In libraries across the country, Health Progress is a useful reference and a historical record of the church’s healing ministry. Finding an editor with the necessary strong base of knowledge and skills to carry this publication forward in today’s complex environment for health care and the church can be a daunting task.
At CHA, we are grateful to have attracted Mary Ann Steiner to succeed Pamela Schaeffer as editor of Health Progress. Mary Ann brings the applicable mix of experience and academic preparation that we needed.
She began her career in publishing as an acquisitions editor, recruiting nurses to author textbooks at a time when medical texts were almost exclusively written by physicians. She moved from that role into the art world, directing the publications department of the Saint Louis Art Museum. In nearly 30 years at that respected institution, she supervised the production of several hundred projects a year including books, exhibition catalogs and interpretive materials for the galleries.
More recently, her interests took her to Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, where she earned a master’s degree in health care mission. At Aquinas, she became the coordinator of the Ashley O’Rourke Initiative for Health Ministry Leadership, which develops and delivers theological and spiritual formation programs and experiences for leaders in Catholic health care.
Health Progress has excelled under the stewardship of Pam Schaeffer. In her six years as editor, Pam’s insights and inquisitiveness have led to the production of outstanding issues of the journal that have been recognized with a number of professional awards. Needless to say, we will miss Pam at CHA, but she will stay connected to the association as a kind of “historian-in-residence” as we approach the association’s 100th anniversary in 2015.
With the direction of a new editor, Health Progress will continue to be a forum for dialogue and creative thinking for the people of Catholic health care and others committed to continuing Jesus’ healing ministry in our world. So I invite you to keep reading.
— Ed Giganti