History
Our Clinical Pastoral Education Residency Program provides clergy and trained laypeople with professional education for ministry in the hospital setting. This program helps to prepare clergy and trained laypeople for certification as a professional chaplain. From the 1940s up until the 1970s, pastoral care consisted of volunteers and local clergy. In 1980, an ACPE-certified supervisor finally took Ochsner through the accreditation process and Ochsner became an accredited ACPE center. After two years with the new recognition, the supervisor was hired by Southern Baptist Hospital and Ochsner lost its accreditation due to a lack of a supervisor.
In the 1980s, pastoral care reverted back to volunteers. Then in the late 1990s, Ochsner Pastoral Care was revived; it became a hospital of placement for the McFarland Institute. The first resident placed here was a supervisor in training, Rev. Jennie Thomas. In 1999, Ochsner hired her to be the first full-time professional chaplain in almost 20 years. She has developed our Pastoral Care program from one chaplain to a team of 12 professional chaplains. With the advent of our residency program, that number will only grow. In the meantime, we continued to offer single units of Clinical Pastoral Education with the McFarland Institute’s support. In 2008, Ochsner Pastoral Care received a matching grant from Baptist Community Ministries to help fund the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Chaplain Residency Program. Ochsner is in process of becoming a satellite CPE center of the McFarland Institute as the first step in the process of becoming our own CPE center again.
Patient Promise
Chaplains help patients, families, and staff members draw upon their spiritual resources to help cope with illness and other issues. Our vision is:
- To provide excellent spiritual support to patients, families, staff and visitors in the healing process of the mind, body and spirit.
- To be an ethical voice in the treatment of patients.
- When healing does not take a physical form, to guide patients, families and staff in the process of dying well.
- To honor all faith traditions within the institution.
- To be a leader in educating clergy regarding pastoral care.
Services
Chaplains provide pastoral, spiritual and emotional care for patients, families and staff 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Services include:
- Spiritual assessments
- Listening support
- Prayer support
- Contacting patient’s clergy/religious leader
- Grief and bereavement counseling
- Assistance with advance directives
- Coping with illness and diagnosis
- Coping with death and dying
- Blessings
- Sacraments (anointing of the sick, eucharist, etc.)
- Chaplains are trained to offer support to people of all faith groups.
Our Interfaith Chapel is located at the main entrance to the hospital and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Daily Mass can be seen on WLAE 14 on the television at 7:00 a.m., with a rosary that follows.
Clinical Pastoral Education Chaplain Residency Program
Ochsner will be offering a full-time, three-unit CPE chaplain residency program starting September 7, 2009 through September 6, 2010. We will have at least four chaplain residents. There will be two residents placed at Ochsner’s Main Campus, one resident at Ochsner in Kenner and one resident at Ochsner West Bank. The successful applicant will have completed at least one unit of clinical pastoral education; a Bachelor degree; a Master of Divinity or equivalent; and ordination or commission to function in ministry. Chaplain residents interested in a second year program are also welcome to apply. Please complete the standard ACPE application. For more information, please contact Rev. Jennie Thomas, Associate Supervisor, ACPE at 1514 Jefferson Highway, New Orleans, LA 70121 or at 504-842-3286. Application deadline is April 30, 2009.
What is Clinical Pastoral Education?
Clinical Pastoral Education is interfaith professional education for the ministry. It brings theological students and ministers of all faiths (pastors, priests, rabbis, imams and others) into supervised encounters with persons in crisis. Out of an intense involvement with persons in need, and the feedback from peers and teachers, students develop a new awareness of themselves as persons and of the needs of those to whom they minister. From theological reflection on specific human situations, they also gain a new understanding of ministry. Within the interdisciplinary team process of helping persons, they further develop skills in interpersonal and inter-professional relationships.
What do the essential elements of CPE include?
- The actual practice of ministry to persons.
- Detailed reporting and evaluation of that practice.
- Pastoral supervision.
- A process conception of learning.
- A theoretical perspective on all elements of the program.
- A small group of peers in a common learning experience.
- A specific time period.
- An individual contract for learning consistent with the objectives of CPE.
- The CPE program must be conducted under the auspices of an ACPE certified supervisor (faculty) attached to an ACPE accredited CPE center.
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