JThey make daily rounds, are often available 24 hours a day, support patients through painful illnesses and even help them face the end of their lives when nothing more can be done. They are hospital chaplains, whose roles may not be as prominent as that of doctors, but are arguably indispensable in the health care setting - assisting the sick in ways a medical professional sometimes cannot.
In Los Angeles County, where there is a large Korean immigrant population, several hospitals with Korean units (which provide linguistic-and culture-specific care) have tapped Korean American chaplains to perform this important  work. By providing spiritual and emotional support that is also culturally sensitive, these chaplains help patients and their families cope during what are often their most vulnerable life moments.

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Dr. Patrick Takahashi of St. Vincent Medical Center, near L.A.'s Koreatown has witnessed how chaplains are often able to put patients and their families at ease. "I appreciate that because it makes our job easier," says Takahashi.
He has high praise for resident chaplain, the Rev. Shin-Hwa Park, who was St. Vincent's first Korean American chaplain.
On a recent Wednesday morning, a nurse working at the hospital's Korean pavilion approaches Park.
"We have a depressed  Korean patient who keeps saying she wants to die," the nurse tells Park. "Could you speak with her?"
Striding energetically past walls adorned with Korean art, Park enters the patient's room. The elderly woman, dressed in a hospital gown, sits next to her bed staring at her hands, her uneaten breakfast nearby and her daughter seated across from her.
The old woman sighs. She says checking into the hospital made her think about her other daughter, who recently died after battling an incurable disease.
"Why would a young person die?" she asks in Korean. "That shouldn't happen. Such a good daughter." She wonders aloud if she could have helped her more.
"I'd feel the same," Park responds in Korean. "The medical team did their best." She adds: "Would you like to pray?"
"Yes," the patient answers.
"Lord. Understand her grief and help her understand life's journey is a mystery." 
When Park stops praying, the patient keeps her eyes closed and head bowed in prayer.
"Many Korean patients are Christians and get me to pray," explains Park, after she leaves the room. "I don't proselytize if the patient is non-Christian or non-religious. Mostly I listen and empathize." 
Born in Seoul, Park, the daughter of a minister, came to the U.S. to study in 1974 after college. She eventually became the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.'s first female Korean minister on the East Coast. In between parish ministry and administration assignments, she became a hospital chaplain nine years ago. She was immediately struck with the importance of spiritual care for the sick and sought extra chaplain training in Clinical Pastoral Education.
Five years ago, she joined St. Vincent Medical Center, which launched a Korean pavilion in 1997 to address the large number of Korean-speaking patients it serves.
For hospital chaplains, each day brings a new challenge. One day they might be comforting an anxious patient before surgery. The next day they might be helping terminal patients and their families deal with end-of-life issues.
In an ethnic community where a high percentage is Christian and hold ministers in high regard, hospital chaplains (known as byungwon wonmok in Korean) sometimes make the difference between a patient moving ahead with urgent treatment versus just waiting for a miracle.
Episcopal priest Fr. Stephen Kim, who sees Korean patients two mornings a week at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles, recalls a diabetic patient's father who refused the recommended treatment for his son because the father believed God would perform a miracle and heal his son without medication. At one point, the father began shouting at the doctors who were advising a more reality-based treatment option.
The physician on the case asked the priest to intervene. "I can't deal with him," the doctor told Kim.
"Why do you shout at the doctors?" Kim, who pulled the man aside, recalls saying. Kim calmed the father down and learned that he was worried he could not afford the treatment. When the chaplain assured him that would not be a problem, the father agreed to the procedure.
Some of the toughest moments on the job, according to the Rev. Park, come when terminal patients ask her to pray for miraculous healing. Culturally, Koreans often have a hard time discussing death and dying, she says.  She's part of a medical interdisciplinary team that helps terminal patients and their families cope with such sensitive issues as advanced directives for care.
"It's difficult when the patient and family aren't seeing medical reality," says Park. The reverend tries to help them come to terms with the fact that nothing more can be done.
Even among non-religious patients, Park says, a hospital stay can stimulate reflection and a host of spiritual questions like: Why am I sick? Am I being punished? How long will I live? Will I go to heaven?
It can also prompt patients who might be normally reticent about divulging personal information  to open up and share their life wounds to the chaplain, who becomes an instant confidante.
Park recalls one patient who revealed that her husband was abusing her. She was able to direct the woman to resources for battered women, including a support group.
"It was a meaningful time for her to find her identity and personal value," reflects Park. "She became determined to find a new life direction."