CHAPLAINCY
Clinical Pastoral Education Program
Background
Hospital based educational programs for clergy were the inspiration of a distinguished Massachusetts General Hospital physician, Richard Cabot, MD. Dr. Cabot and Chaplain Russell Dicks founded the Clinical Pastoral Education program at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in 1934 with two goals in mind: to provide an expanded ministry to patients, families, and staff, and to facilitate a supervised educational experience for clergy and seminarians.
Today Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is open to persons from many vocations and religious traditions. Theological students, seminarians, and clergy use CPE both for personal and professional growth in the formation process, and as a continuing education opportunity. Healthcare Providers of all disciplines use CPE to integrate skills of spiritual caregiving into their work within their own disciplines.
CPE is an interfaith professional education program for ministry and spiritual care. It brings participants into supervised encounters with persons in crisis. Out of an intense involvement with persons in need, and feedback from peers and supervisors, participants develop a new awareness of themselves personally and professionally. The process of reflection on practical experience enables the development and integration of intercultural, interpersonal, and interfaith skills.
CPE at the Massachusetts General Hospital
Founded in 1811 the Massachusetts General Hospital is the third oldest general hospital in the United States. The 890-bed world-renowned medical center offers sophisticated diagnostic and therapeutic care in virtually every specialty and subspecialty of medicine and surgery. It is also the oldest and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, and nearly all of the hospital’s active staff physicians are on the Harvard Medical School faculty. It consistently ranks as one of the country’s best hospitals by U.S. News and World Report.
The group of twenty-three spiritual caregivers in the Chaplaincy Department at the Massachusetts General Hospital is as diverse as the hospital’s population. Chaplains provide support for people of all traditions and for those with no religious affiliation.
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is one of two training sites of the Partners HealthCare System CPE Center. Within the Partners HealthCare System CPE Center the training sites collaborate administratively, offer multiple educational opportunities, create forums for exchange about pastoral formation, and utilize combined teaching resources.
The CPE programs offered at the MGH Site of the Partners HealthCare Systems CPE Center are accredited by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE), 1549 Clairmont Road, Suite 103, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4611, phone:403-320-1472, fax: 403-320-0849; www.acpe.edu.
The Rev. Angelika Zollfrank, ACPE Supervisor, serves as Interfaith Chaplain and Director of the Clinical Pastoral Education programs at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Program Content
In the CPE program participants:
Enhance their skills in the area of addressing existential and spiritual needs
Develop a better awareness of themselves and their role
Integrate spiritual caregiving into their personal and professional identity
Deepen their presence with others
Get practice in theological/existential reflection on spiritual caregiving
Learn about the diversity of peoples’ spiritual and religious lives
Learn to initiate, deepen, and end pastoral relationships
The program incorporates clinical work with patients and families, written work, and program seminars. Written work includes Experience of Faith reflections, Pastoral Call Reports, weekly Process Notes, and personal and program evaluations. Seminars include clinical case presentations, interdisciplinary didactics, individual supervisory conferences, Small Process Group sessions, and worship leadership seminars. All students share in the leadership of interfaith Chapel services, and those preparing for ministry (and others who choose to do so) take part in the Chaplain On-Call program.
Cost
Tuition for the CPE unit is a total of $900. The first $75 of the cost is a non-refundable application fee. Except for Fellowship awardees, a non-refundable deposit of $100 assures a place upon acceptance into the program, leaving the remaining $700.00 of tuition payable on the first day of the program. Students who need to make arrangements for an extended payment schedule may do so with the Supervisor before the beginning of the unit. In any case, however, the tuition of $875 must be paid by the end of the program for the student to receive credit.
Students with Fellowship funding for the CPE unit make all financial arrangements for the unit directly with their CPE Supervisor.
The MGH CPE Site currently offers the following CPE programs:
|
CPE for Healthcare Providers |
Full-Time Introductory Summer CPE Unit |
Advanced Interdisciplinary CPE Program |
|
Program Dates |
January - May |
Sept - Dec |
June-August |
|
Hours |
8.5 Educational hrs/wk 14 clinical hours |
8.5 |
Full-time 40 hrs/wk |
8.5 Educational hrs/wk |
Prerequisite |
None |
Pursuing seminary degree |
Pursuing seminary degree |
|
CPE for Healthcare Providers, with focus on Healthcare Providers
Summer Unit, with focus on theological students, seminarians, and clergy
Advanced Interdisciplinary CPE Program, with focus on students with one completed unit of CPE who are pursuing healthcare chaplaincy