As a bedside chaplain, I am constantly educating others about my role and the requirements it takes to be in my role. For the sake of getting it down on paper, general requirements for holding my position include: a 4-year bachelors degree, a 3-year masters degree, 1 year of post-graduate education via a CPE Residency, 1 year of full-time employment, and achieving board certification. My own journey took some detours from this route (Hello 5 year M.Div.), but for the most part this path to chaplaincy has been true for me. I began undergraduate in September of 2009, and became board certified in February of 2020. It took me 11 years to "arrive" in this field. (Just for reference - it takes approximately 10-14 years to become a licensed MD.)
Some of you may remember 2016 as a year of massive loss for me. In 2016, I watched my seminary class walk without me, lost my brother to suicide, lost my mom to suicide, moved out of state, lost the job that I had moved for, applied for residencies in Iowa/Kentucky, spent my last pennies traveling between the hospitals for interviews - unsure if I would even be allowed to work in a healthcare setting, received job offers in both places, and relocated to a third state to begin trying to put my life back together. I came with whatever would fit in my Jeep, and thanks to some UMC connections found temporary housing as I navigated being homeless in a new place, separated from my Dog, trying to get some grounding underneath me.
I share all of that again in this space, as a reminder to myself about where I've come from and how fucking hard I have had to work to heal. On top of my personal struggle, November of 2016 also brought the Reign of Trump, and planted the seeds of deep political divide in some of my most important relationships. While this is not the space to process those pains, they are present in the midst of this story, of my story.
In the years since, I completed not one, but two years of post-graduate Residency work and was hired full-time into my ideal position. For the last 7 years, I have served as a dedicated Critical Care Staff Chaplain. In the onset of the Pandemic in 2020, I also took on a dedicated role within the Emergency Room and with the Trauma team. Alongside of the changing healthcare landscape in 2020, came the loss of our CPE program. And, with that loss, came a professional standstill for me. When I accepted my position in 2016, I had made it known that I had a desire to become a Certified Educator.
Perhaps it was coincidental, or divine timing, or whatever - that I had time to mature as a Spiritual Care professional during one of the most challenging seasons of working in healthcare. I took a master class in self-care, staff care and organizational chaplaincy, alongside of the incredibly tough clinical environments that I served. The last few years has been a slow and often painful rebuilding process for our department and in August of 2022, we welcomed our first residents back on campus. In addition, at the beginning of this year, I finally began the next step in my journey towards becoming a Certified Educator through the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE).
