Around the world, a new evidence-based paradigm is informing the work of healthcare chaplains and spiritual care providers. Fulfilling the potential of the evidence-based paradigm for healthcare chaplaincy requires that all chaplains, and those who educate them, become research literate. Being research literate means two things. First, it means having the ability to critically read and understand basic research, and, if indicated, apply the findings of research studies to one’s chaplaincy practice. Second, it means being generally familiar with the existing body of chaplaincy research including topics that have been studied and important areas for future research. The aim of Transforming Chaplaincy’s Chaplaincy Summer Research Institute (CRSI) is to provide students with a beginning level of research literacy in both senses of the term.
The 2023 Chaplaincy Research Summer Institute will take place July 17 to July 21 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. We are pleased we have an opportunity to work with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to host the CRSI on the West Coast. The CRSI will be led by Csaba Szilagyi, MDiv, MLA, MS, ACPE, Director of Research, Department of Religion, Health and Human Values, Rush University Medical Center and Director of Transforming Chaplaincy, and George Fitchett, DMin, PhD, BCC, Senior Advisor, Transforming Chaplaincy. Core faculty will include Katherine “Kate” Piderman, PhD, BCC, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Mayo Clinic, Annelieke Damen, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, University for Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands, and Shelley Varner Perez, MDiv, MPH, BCC, CPH, Sr. Program Manager for Spiritual Care Research, Indiana University Health.
