Students

The Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Program at St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond, Va. offers the following CPE programs:

First and Second Year Residency Programs – 4 units of CPE

• $50,000 yearly stipend
• No CPE tuition cost
• Medical, visual and dental benefits
• Paid time off, on-call acknowledgment and retirement plan
• Free parking
• Shared on-call responsibilities with staff chaplains, PRN chaplains and CPE externs/interns 
• 40-plus hours per week including clinical, on-call and educational activities
• CPE cohort size includes six residents: Three CPE residents will serve at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond, Va.; two residents will serve at Bon Secours Southside Medical Center in Petersburg, Va.; the second-year resident will rotate across multiple clinical sites.
• Education: All CPE residency education and supervisory activities will take place at St. Mary’s Hospital.
• On-call: CPE students may choose to be on-call from home as long as they can respond to a page within 30 minutes. The spiritual care on-call suite is also available for students who prefer to stay overnight in the hospital.

CPE Hybrid Summer Internship Program – 1 unit credit/semi-full time

• $2,000 end-of-unit stipend might be available as funding allows
• Excellent learning opportunity to combine education and summer leisure
• Combines online and in-person learning modalities
• Affordable
• Free parking
• Available clinical placement agreements
• Three weekdays only. Additional time might be negotiated as needed.
• Nine hours of education and 12 hours of weekly clinical ministry (this may vary based on program type and needs)
• Two weekend days on-call per month (24 hours)
• Shared on-call responsibilities with staff chaplains, PRN chaplains and CPE residents
• On-call: CPE students may choose to be on-call from home as long as they can respond to a page within 30 minutes. The spiritual care on-call suite is also available for students who prefer to stay overnight in the hospital.

CPE Extended Program – 1 unit credit/part-time

• $2,000 end-of-unit stipend might be available as funding allows
• Excellent learning opportunity to combine study and work
• Affordable
• Flexible clinical hours
• Free parking
• 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. CPE group one weekday, plus one hour of individual supervision every other week
• Flexible hours of clinical ministry per week, which varies depending on the program's length
• Two weekends of on-call per month (Saturday or Sunday)
• Available clinical placement agreements
• Shared on-call responsibilities with staff chaplains, PRN chaplains and CPE residents
• Multiple CPE units can be achieved through this modality, which allows students to continue to work while pursuing CPE
• On-call: CPE students may choose to be on-call from home as long as they can respond to a page within 30 minutes. The spiritual care on-call suite is also available for students who prefer to stay overnight in the hospital.

CPE Online Program - 1 unit credit/part-time

• Flexible Clinical Sites 
• Flexible clinical schedules
• Receive quality CPE supervision and education from the comfort of your home and/or other private spaces
• Students accepted in this program are required to identify a clinical site where they can practice ministry face to face with patients and/or clients (e.g., faith communities, nursing homes, retirement assisted living, and/or community-based organizations, among others ) 
• Students are responsible to identify a preceptor responsible for them in their preferred clinical site. A preceptor is: “A contextually relevant professional practicing in and recognized by the clinical placement site and the ACPE Certified Educator. Recognition for this role requires one or more of the following: A) professional licensing, professional certification/authority to function in their role. B) an advanced degree in their field of expertise. C) faith group endorsement/local equivalent process
• Students in this program are not eligible to receive stipend, and the fee structure is different. Please, contact our office for more information about financial requirements as it might vary. We work with individuals in a case-by-case basis.

Per ACPE standards, one unit of CPE consists of a minimum of 400 hours of supervised ministry: 300 clinical hours (minimum) and 100 educational hours (minimum).

Areas of Specialty

At the completion of four units of CPE, candidates could be eligible to apply for:  

• Faith-based spiritual/religious leadership roles
• Hospital staff chaplain
• Hospice chaplain
• Pediatric chaplain
• Behavioral health chaplain 
• Oncology chaplain
• Palliative care chaplain
• ICU chaplain
• Emergency room chaplain
• Bereavement coordinator
• Corporate chaplain
• Veterans Affairs staff chaplain
• Prison chaplain
• College/school chaplain 
• Military chaplain (requires specific military training)
• ACPE supervisory education

What Makes the Program Stand Out

Our CPE program shares some similarities with other programs, but the following characteristics differentiate us:

• Faith-based health care organization with a religiously diverse population 
• Adult and pediatric emergency departments
• Diverse spiritual care department with various spiritual care lines of service
• Four-unit CPE Residency Program
• Spiritual Care Partners (volunteer) training program to prepare for CPE, if needed
• Professional chaplain development program for chaplain advancement
• Affordable tuition
• A diverse Professional Advisory Group
• Multiple clinical sites for placement agreements, including but not limited to: St. Mary’s Hospital, Memorial Regional Medical Center, St. Francis Medical Center, Richmond Community Hospital, Southside Medical Center and Bon Secours Hospice.
• Balanced experiential and academic learning
• Preceptors are board-certified chaplains 
• Clinical rotations to experience different medical specialties
• Shared on-call responsibilities with staff chaplains

What are students saying?

“CPE is ministry with people of different faiths and cultures – like iron sharpening iron. It showed me who I am, took me out of my comfort zone – I became more skillful and knowledgeable.”

“I expected to see sick people and I found resilience – in the patients and in myself.”

“We come in with our own experiences that show up again. I thought I would see broken people dealing with trauma. Instead, I saw myself and my family. Through the personal history of what I’ve been through – I was healed.” 

“I realized that what I hated about my life prepared me to be with those who are suffering.”

“On a day/visit when I’m devastated – like the death of a child or a loved one – it’s tough. This is where self-care enters. CPE taught me to take time for myself instead of just marching on asking ‘what more can I do or should I be doing?’”