Transforming Healthcare Chaplaincy Education: PhD Dissertation Defense

Welcome to my PhD dissertation defense at Rush University, where I present my research on transforming healthcare chaplaincy education. In this presentation, I explore the current challenges, gaps, and opportunities in chaplaincy training and propose a new framework for integrating academic and clinical education.

My dissertation consists of three studies:

🔹 Early-Career Healthcare Chaplains – Examining how well healthcare chaplains feel prepared for professional practice by their academic degree(s) and Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).
🔹 Healthcare Chaplaincy Hiring Managers – Understanding what knowledge, skills, and attitudes employers look for in new healthcare chaplains. Read the journal article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
🔹 Expert Consensus on Curriculum Standards – Establishing a set of comprehensive standardized competencies for healthcare chaplaincy education that integrates both academic and clinical education.

Through these studies, I identify three critical problems in healthcare chaplaincy education:
1️⃣ Fragmentation – The disconnect between academic training and clinical practice.
2️⃣ Generalization – A broad, often congregational focus that does not fully prepare chaplains for healthcare contexts.
3️⃣ Variation – The lack of standardized learning outcomes across training programs.

To solve these issues, I propose a new model built on three guiding principles:
✅ Integration – Aligning academic and clinical education for a seamless training experience.
✅ Specialization – Designing chaplaincy education specifically for healthcare, rather than adapting from general theological studies.
✅ Standardization – Implementing clear, evidence-based curriculum standards to ensure consistency in chaplaincy training.

This research is a call to action for the field of healthcare chaplaincy to move toward a more cohesive, effective, and forward-thinking educational system.

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🎓 Acknowledgment: This research was made possible with the generous support of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) through their 2023 Research and Innovation Grant. Their commitment to advancing chaplaincy education and research has been instrumental in this work.

Visit their channel here: ‪@acpethestandardforspiritua2596‬

Another big thanks to ‪@transformingchaplaincy1542‬ for their support throughout my entire PhD journey!