Clinical Pastoral Education: The Work of the Chaplain
This past winter I spent 10 weeks at Bellevue Hospital Center in NYC as a chaplain. It. Was. Awesome. I had the chance to minister to a very diverse group of people, I mean, on Bellevue's own website it says that it's, "a microcosm of the Third World – a hospital for the undocumented, impoverished and disfranchised" (Bellevue CPE). I was assigned the prison floor where inmates from Rikers Island would come to have medical/surgical procedures done, Medical ICU, Coronary Care Unit, Rehabilitation, Adult Psych, and when on-call Adult and Pediatric ER.
As an Army chaplain, I am the go-to guy when things fall apart. When a soldier loses someone, is having a bad day, is feeling down, and the like, the common refrain from his or her supervisor is, “Go see the chaplain.” My job, then, is to counsel, advise, pray with, and find resources for the individual. With that, the greatest obstacle I’ve had to overcome in CPE while visiting patients is shutting down that part of me that wants to fix, fix, fix. I would often try to formulate answers in my head while trying to listen, which of course made for bad communication. CPE has taught me that it’s not about doing, but being. It’s actually listening to the one in the bed, chair, or family member that is beside themselves as the world crumbles around them. It’s getting to the deeper emotion and allowing the individual to be him or herself. I don’t need to fix the patient because honestly there isn’t a lot to fix in the first place, these people are in the most vulnerable place that they’ll probably ever be in and it’s an honor to be able to minister to them.
Theology of CPE
CPE is war. With peers, supervisors, self, and the hospital as a whole the entire process is a battle waged in the heart, mind, and in front of my eyes. The best way to describe it is structured chaos. I begin rounds as if I’m on combat patrol in a foreign land; I scan the scene for anything out of the usual, do I hear weeping, yelling, the sirens and beeps of equipment? I see a group of people a few rooms down, what’s going on? As I get closer I ask God to give me strength and wisdom to get through what’s about to happen. I come upon the unknown and I am immediately attacked by grief, anger, and disbelief. “Chaplain,” a small woman in tears says, “she just passed.” Bells and whistles go off in my being, “What do I say, how do I react to this ambush of intense emotion that I am surrounded by?”...It’s IPR (Interpersonal Relations), the stage is set for a bloody bout. Who will make the first move, let their guard down to attack? “Chaplain, I didn’t like it when you…” “Quick, put up the defenses” I tell myself, but this is a different kind of battle. Like the Sword of Gryffindor that which is meant to harm or disable me only makes me stronger. It forces me to adapt my thinking, to look deeper and discover why I do the things I do. As I’ve heard a few peers say, “It is better to willingly go to the cross than be forced there.” In war one must learn to adapt, to overcome, to suffer well. If one doesn’t learn from past failure then stagnation sets in and begins to rot or even worse, is besieged with guilt, with a gnawing hunger.
War can be bloody, gruesome, and oh so exhausting. CPE too is all of these things. There’s been days where I get home and all I want to do is slump onto the couch and do absolutely nothing. The rigor of seeing and hearing patient after patient sometimes wears on my being, just as in Iraq the physical toll of being ever vigilant on convoys wore on my mind and body. It is for this reason that I’ve tapped into those I can unburden myself to. Without an outlet burn out sets in, complacency, bitterness. And in war, complacency kills. In CPE, complacency drains ones spiritual resources and renders one ineffective.
CPE is war. With peers, supervisors, self, and the hospital as a whole the entire process is a battle waged in the heart, mind, and in front of my eyes. The best way to describe it is structured chaos. I begin rounds as if I’m on combat patrol in a foreign land; I scan the scene for anything out of the usual, do I hear weeping, yelling, the sirens and beeps of equipment? I see a group of people a few rooms down, what’s going on? As I get closer I ask God to give me strength and wisdom to get through what’s about to happen. I come upon the unknown and I am immediately attacked by grief, anger, and disbelief. “Chaplain,” a small woman in tears says, “she just passed.” Bells and whistles go off in my being, “What do I say, how do I react to this ambush of intense emotion that I am surrounded by?”...It’s IPR (Interpersonal Relations), the stage is set for a bloody bout. Who will make the first move, let their guard down to attack? “Chaplain, I didn’t like it when you…” “Quick, put up the defenses” I tell myself, but this is a different kind of battle. Like the Sword of Gryffindor that which is meant to harm or disable me only makes me stronger. It forces me to adapt my thinking, to look deeper and discover why I do the things I do. As I’ve heard a few peers say, “It is better to willingly go to the cross than be forced there.” In war one must learn to adapt, to overcome, to suffer well. If one doesn’t learn from past failure then stagnation sets in and begins to rot or even worse, is besieged with guilt, with a gnawing hunger.
War can be bloody, gruesome, and oh so exhausting. CPE too is all of these things. There’s been days where I get home and all I want to do is slump onto the couch and do absolutely nothing. The rigor of seeing and hearing patient after patient sometimes wears on my being, just as in Iraq the physical toll of being ever vigilant on convoys wore on my mind and body. It is for this reason that I’ve tapped into those I can unburden myself to. Without an outlet burn out sets in, complacency, bitterness. And in war, complacency kills. In CPE, complacency drains ones spiritual resources and renders one ineffective.
And that's it. That is what I've learned from that short yet intense experience.
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