The Class of 2016 Joint Navy-Department of Veterans Affairs Pastoral Care Residency Program graduated 11 Navy and Veterans Affairs chaplains Sept. 23, at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP), marking the completion of the 31st year of the program.

The residency program equates to a year of graduate education for chaplains. The six VA graduates will minister to patients within the VA healthcare system. The five Navy chaplains are now qualified to serve at Navy hospitals, and they are placed in assignments that require the skills and experience to provide intensive pastoral care and counseling in multi-disciplinary medical and clinical environments. Their commitment is to serve for three years after completing the program.

During her remarks, the guest speaker for the event, Rear Adm. Margaret Kibben, the Navy's chief of chaplains, focused on the growth that the group has experienced over the past year.

"You have grown in your understanding of who you are and what you have been called to do," Kibben said. "You've developed a keen sense of judgement necessary to navigate those complex and often ambiguous environments. It's critical we have both the competence and character as we live out our call, to be where and when we're needed most."

The goal of the residency program is to prepare chaplains to assist patients and their families and prepare them to be strong in the most difficult of moments.

"There's loss of life, there's news that's distressing or something has happened that unsettled the person who the chaplain is talking to," said Cmdr. (Chap.) Michael Chaney, staff chaplain and resident coordinator at NMCP. "This residency program allows chaplains to go through a year of training where they will become more aware of themselves while they are in these situations and allow themselves to step out of the way to let healing and ministry happen between the chaplain and the person."

"We try to visit every person who gets admitted," said Lt. Cmdr. (Chap.) D. Chad McIntosh, a graduate of the program who is being stationed at NMCP. "I was responsible for four wards. We present ourselves to see if there is a spiritual or religious need that we can fill. Sometimes they want prayer, sometimes they want to talk about they are going through."

McIntosh answered the call to provide pastoral care to Sailors and Marines after more than a decade as a pastor in Anderson, Indiana. McIntosh had previously served for four years as an enlisted member of the Marine Corps.

"The program is very intensive - what I got most out of it is self-reflection," McIntosh said. "When I can figure out what I'm feeling, I can better help them with what they are feeling."

During the yearlong program, the two groups alternate with six months at NMCP and six months at the Hampton VA Medical Center. Throughout each week, the chaplains spend three days visiting patients in the wards and two days meeting with supervisors for educational session, such as group meetings for sharing verbatims.

Verbatims are a personal reflection of a specific patient encounter and are required weekly.

"After a patient encounter, the chaplain sits down at a computer and reconstructs the encounter 'verbatim,' including what was said, what was done, how the chaplain was feeling, and anything else that is significant, such as the doctor walked in and the patient's affect changed," Chaney said. "Chaplains present a verbatim to the group weekly and the group evaluates how they did."

While completing the four quarters of in-depth integration of theory and practice in clinical pastoral education, the chaplains are required to participate in more than 400 hours of structured group and individual supervision and instruction, and a minimum pf 1,200 hours of clinical practice. This class completed more than 1,600 hours of clinical practice.
In addition, each resident is responsible for the 56 weekly assignments of their clinical work, and 40 weekly reading reflection stations, and a major research project.

Formed in 1984 and with the first class graduating in 1985, the Hampton Roads Clinic Pastoral Education Center united the efforts of the Navy Chaplain Corps and the National Veterans Affairs Chaplain Center to provide certified CPE for selected Navy chaplains. The program is accredited by the Association for Clinic Pastoral Education.

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For more news from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, visit www.navy.mil/.