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The ACPE Research Network seeks to foster connections among members of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education interested in research, encourage original research, and raise awareness about published research (e.g., in the health care literature and the education literature) related to spirituality, pastoral care, and Clinical Pastoral Education.

  GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS (updated February 1, 2010):

RECENT:

• The February Article-of-the-Month will be posted by the 14th. Our January Article-of-the-Month looks at the provision of spiritual support for advanced cancer patients by medical team members and chaplains and the various associations with End-of-Life medical care (e.g., hospice referral or aggressive treatment) and Quality of Life near death. Also, note the somewhat unusual October AoM, considering meditation, telomeres, and cellular longevity. One of the co-authors of that article is Elizabeth Blackburn, a 2009 Nobel laureate in medicine, who helped pioneer research into telomeres (DNA "caps" protecting the ends of chromosomes).
   
  
• The Winter Newsletter is scheduled to be posted by the end of February. The Fall 2009 Newsletter has been posted, including a report of a new national survey of satisfaction with chaplains by physicians, a suggestion of a research question for use in pastoral visits, an update of activities at the Department of Religion, Health and Human Values at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, an announcement of a new online resource from the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, an notice of new articles on longitudinal methodology by Scott Murray. Note, too, the Spring-Summer 2009 issue reported a study of CPE by HealthCare Chaplaincy in New York, news of initiatives by Virginia Commonwealth University's Program in Patient Counseling, research by Gordon Hilsman into "Spiritual Skills," an investigation into "The Chaplain’s Role in Pediatric Palliative Care" by Nancy Berlinger at The Hastings Center, and a call for papers by the Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy.
   
  
• The Fetzer Institute (www.fetzer.org) has revised its website, and the link for its Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality for Use in Health Care Research has been changed (to www.fetzer.org/images/stories/pdf/MultidimensionalBooklet.pdf). The new online PDF does not contain the cover and table of contents. All links on our Network pages have been changed to reflect this new address. See especially the Articles-of-the-Month for January 2004, January 2009, and April 2003.
   
  
• HealthCare Chaplaincy (New York) has posted on its website (www.healthcarechaplaincy.org) the first five bibliographies in its Practical Bearings series --critical reviews of important books, articles and other publications on the theory and practice of pastoral care. "The Management of Care: Literature on Leadership and Organizational Development," "Discerning Patient Needs: Spiritual Assessment," "Meeting the Other: Interreligious Encounters in the Provision and Supervision of Spiritual Care," "To Want to Learn: Educational Theory for Supervision and Training," and "By Its Fruits: The Science of Health Care Chaplaincy," can be downloaded via www.healthcarechaplaincy.org/chaplaincy-research-resources/practical-bearings.html. Future issues planned for the coming months include: "Ministry Amidst Chance, Necessity, Love: Cancer and Health Care Chaplaincy," and "The Comfort of Strangers: Trends in the History and Current Practice of Health Care." Rev. Dr. Leonard Hummel, Professor of Pastoral Theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, and Visiting Scholar with HealthCare Chaplaincy, spoke about these bibliographies at our October 2008 Network meeting; and he is quoted on the project website: "Practical Bearings will point professional chaplains to resources that will help them fulfill their mission in the evolving and complex world of health care." These bibliographies are not restricted to research materials, but they should be broadly valuable.
   
  
• Note the new section of the site, for the latest information about the Ideal Intervention Paper (IIP) Project being led by Dr. John Gleason and Fr. Henry Heffernan. Sample IIPs by CPE students in a variety of programs are now available.
   
  
• The Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy is soliciting original research papers and literature reviews on topics of interest to chaplaincy. Full-length reports and brief reports of research may be submitted. All manuscripts should be in APA style and will be peer-reviewed. Please send manuscripts to KFlannelly@healthcarechaplaincy.org. For more on the journal, see our Spring-Summer 2009 Newsletter (§6).
   
  
• The Southern Medical Association's online resource for Spirituality & Medicine is again available --go to www.sma.org/spirituality. This fine resource had been briefly unavailable for several months this spring, after the conclusion of the grant for the SMA's Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project (--as was noted in our Spring-Summer 2008 Newsletter) Our Network is listed on the site under the "Resources" section.
   
  
• Internet addresses often change, and one of the challenges of maintaining a site like ours is to keep all of the links on our many pages updated. As of 8/16/09, all links on this site were confirmed to be fully operational. Members, please e-mail john.ehman@uphs.upenn.edu if you encounter difficulties with linked sites.

 
CONTINUING:

• Network members are invited to participate in the University of Pennsylvania Survey of Spiritual Experiences [opens in a new window], conducted by Andrew Newberg, MD, et al. For more on Dr. Newberg, see our Spring 2006 Newsletter (§6).
   
  
• The Spirituality and Health columns in the Oklahoma Health Center News (originally noted in the our Spring 2006 Newsletter, §3), written by Ken Blank and John Campbell of the Oklahoma Health Center Clinical Pastoral Education Institute, are now available on the Institute's web site (www.cpeokc.org --see the Read Columns from the OHC News section).
   
  
• Bibliographies of Medline-indexed articles on spirituality and health (noted in the Fall 2005, Spring 2006, and Spring-Summer 2007 Newsletters) are available as PDFs at www.uphs.upenn.edu/pastoral/resed/bibindex.html.

 
   
 

If you are a first-time visitor, please also note:

CPE Supervisors: please introduce your students to our web site, and see that they are aware of the annual Research Network awards.

This web site became operational on September 1, 2002. It will continue to evolve in response to suggestions from Network members. To submit suggestions, please directly e-mail the Network's convener at john.ehman@uphs.upenn.edu. All member correspondence is confirmed by return e-mail.

For the web site of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, click here.