Most people experience pain, stress, anxiety and confusion when entering a hospital. Let’s face it: No one really wants to be in a hospital. We would much rather experience health and vitality in the comfort of our homes surrounded by the familiarity of family.
Hospital chaplains understand why patients and their families have a yearning for compassion, hope and peace when they're celebrating life, processing complex situations or dealing with unbearable grief. Their clinical sacred calling provides a soul connection to patients.
Members of Adventist Health Portland's clinical pastoral education (CPE) program recently completed their latest unit of education. In a special ceremony, participants and their families were honored by the spiritual care team and Adventist Health leadership.
CPE is an individualized group-training model for professional chaplains. Adventist Health Portland has offered CPE training for local clergy members since 2015.
"Our community is blessed to have caring and compassionate spiritual leaders who are committed to meeting the complex needs they encounter," says Terry Johnsson, Adventist Health's vice president for mission integration. "By working together, we are creating a stronger and more effective spiritual care network."
Trainees develop a better understanding of self by reflecting on personal perceptions, actions and reactions. These tools allow them to become a more effective and therapeutically fit sojourner to the afflicted in their pastoral functioning.
The focus of CPE is to help the trainees embrace and cultivate self in light of personal successes and failures, strengths and brokenness, hope and despair, as a work in progress, allowing them to become the "primary tool" in pastoral functioning. The trainee becomes their own book to read, study and master, which in the lexicon of CPE is called the "living human document." It is a wonderful opportunity to have an encounter with personal self.
Adventist Health Portland now offers CPE in 20-week and 40-week curriculums. Participants complete training units on their way to earning Associate Clinical Chaplain or Clinical Chaplain certifications. To learn more about CPE, contact Adventist Health Portland’s spiritual care team at 503-251-6105 or email Leo Zakhariya.
Leo Zakhariya, CPE program supervisor, leads a prayer of dedication for participants during their graduation ceremony.
Leo Zakhariya, CPE program supervisor, leads a prayer of dedication for participants during their graduation ceremony.
(From left) Andrei Caminschi; Leo Zakhariya, program supervisor; Ron Hart; Anna Westermeyer; and Steve Madsen celebrate the completion of their latest unit of CPE training.
