Recommended research publications

John Ehman, Manager for Pastoral Care at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, maintains the ACPE Research Article of the Month resource. This month’s article relates directly to the work of the Lab:

Clevenger, C., Cadge, W., Stroud, I. E., Palmer, P. K., Haythorn, T. and Fitchett, G. “Education for professional chaplaincy in the US: mapping current practice in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).” Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy 27, no. 4 (October-December 2021): 222-237.

SUMMARY and COMMENT: A vitally useful focus of research for chaplains is what we do as a collective group. This informs the development of our profession, helps us get our bearing on our practice in relation to others, and might be thought of as systematically crowd-sourcing the wisdom of samples of peers. This month’s study involves ACPE educators, but it raises for all chaplains the issue of how much of our attention should we be giving to “propositional knowledge” in our field vis-a-vis relational skills and self-awareness in the clinical encounter. The question, “How should chaplains be educated?” is relevant to every chaplain’s responsibility for continuing education and professional self-assessment. Data presented here are from only 19 educators, but the sample is purposive, selected from across the US and various CPE settings, and offers much food for thought.

Ehman’s Article of the Month is a vital resource for keeping up with research in spiritual care, especially in healthcare.