Students

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

CPE Residency Program – 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 five residents: 3 CPE residents will serve at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond, Va. and two residents will serve at Bon Secours Southside Medical Center in Petersburg, Va
• 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 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.

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?’”