CPE cultural immersion through a country exchange program

This study evaluated a country exchange cultural immersion program for Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) students at Houston Methodist Hospital System (HM). HM has CPE programs with students in both Monterrey, Mexico and Houston, Texas, United States of America (US). Participants included 17 students from Mexico and the United States (US) who were interviewed individually or in small groups regarding their experiences with the program. Students from Mexico were interviewed in Spanish and the US students were interviewed in English. The study received institutional review board approval. All interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, with students receiving pseudonyms. The methodology utilized was qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The research team, composed of three chaplains, one educator and one researcher, coded all interviews twice. Thirteen themes emerged leading to the overall conclusion that the program is very successful at helping chaplain students step out of their comfort zone, grow in compassion, confidence and competence when working with patients, families and staff who represent different cultures and ethnicities than themselves. Themes were matched with Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) Level IIA Outcome Indicators demonstrating that the program aids students in meeting several competencies.