Westberg was a pioneer in exploring and encouraging the interrelationship of religion and medicine and in fostering holistic health care.
In 1939 Westberg began his career as a parish pastor and brought a dying church in Bloomington, Illinois, back to life.
In the early 1940s, when most of the few existing hospital chaplains were part-time elderly ministers, young Westberg saw the potential for clergy making a more significant contribution to the care of patients.
Westberg thought that appropriately educated chaplains could have meaningful conversations with patients and their families and that they could provide an important perspective as part of a health care team.
Like most ministers, Westberg's education had been highly theoretical and classroom-based with little help in developing needed practical skills, such as counseling.
Russell Dicks, who with physician, Richard Cabot, had written the important book, The Art of Ministering to the Sick,[3] had recently moved to Chicago.
At their hospitals, Dicks and Westberg created popular, intensive courses in pastoral care for ordained ministers, chaplains, and seminarians.
At the time of Westberg's death, the work had sold more than 2.4 million copies and was the top-selling book in the history of Augsburg Fortress, the official publisher of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
In the early 1970s when Westberg moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he worked with a team in creating several "wholistic health centers".
[8] Established as a three-year program through a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the operation began with six registered nurses.
Faith community nurses are also working in Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, England, Ghana, India, Kenya, Korea, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Palestine, Pakistan, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland, Ukraine, Wales, Zambia and Zimbabwe.