Differences

I have now worked for 2 weeks at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage. During the next 7 months, I will be completing the majority of a second year residency and 2 more units of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education). I accepted the offer for the position for a few reasons.

1) I tend to really like the learning that happens in CPE. It follows the action-reflection model of learning. You act, then you reflect/learn. The supervisors encourage you to be introspective, and thus the learning is mostly about yourself. Someone once said to me, "There's only so much of that self-reflection you can do." Respectfully, I disagree.

2) I am not one who spends much time making long-term goals and planning for the distant future. However, one of my few (I mean, few) long-term goals (at this point) is to enter the training to become a CPE supervisor. And completing 2 more units can only help in that regard.

3) Third, let's be honest, it's a paying job.

4) I value the service to people that often goes unseen between chaplains and patients. If you peruse my blog during the time of my first residency, I think it will speak to this. No where else in life did I daily encounter people in crisis, crying out for help, support, crying on my shoulder, hugging me goodbye after just meeting them, and people in their most vulnerable and authentic moments trusting me to hold them safely. Yes, I value this work as something that speaks to, and feeds, those "human parts" inside all of us.

A Catholic hospital, Providence is the largest hospital in Alaska with an inpatient capacity somewhere around 360-375 beds. I'm not sure the actual number. The main units are, a busy Emergency Dept., surgery, a 30-bed ICU, general medical floors, rehab., cardio, a childrens' floor (which they call the children's hospital), a 50-bed NICU (neo-natal), Palliative Care, and an out patient cancer center. "About 100 beds fewer than my last employer, it certainly feels just as big.

The chaplain resident group has 7 people: two Presbyterians, 1 Evangelical Free, 1 Disciples of Christ, 1 Catholic priest from Tanzania, 1 Unitarian Universalist, and of course me, a half-Baptist half-Methodist fully confused guy ordained CBF who cares very little for denomination. Our supervisor is a Catholic priest from Nigeria with a most interesting life story.

The group welcomed me warmly, allaying much of my anxiety as I remember my previous groups apprehension when we thought a new person might be joining mid-year for one of our didactics. Of the 7 of us, only two are on their first year of residenc, so it is a season bunch with many talents and gifts for ministry. I have much to learn from all of them over the next 7 months.

Because my last job was as a CPE resident, I can't help but note the many differences between this place and that place, this program and my old one. This section is mostly for my old CPE yaars. Here, we still all share one big office, which is a little crazy when we're all here. Not every desk area has its own computer, so we have to share those. (No sitting for long periods of time reading articles and blogs.)

The charting system is McKesson! So, I'm totally familiar with it. However, the hospital is in the misdt of changing computer systems in order to consolidate the 3 that they use right now, so on Feb. 26 there will be no more McKesson. But, I thought it was great that I already knew how to chart.

Learning goals are given much more emphasis. We went over every one's together as a group. Then we have to submit and sign with our supervisor a final version of them. They were always so minor at Spartanburg. IPR is called "PPR"(something like Peer-Professional-Relationships). I just don't like saying "PP." Their didactics here are stand alone. An hour-long didactic may be about assessment, another about Suicide patients. The topics change each session, unlike at Spartanburg where they were more like classes that lasted several months on one topic.

We've had two verbatims already (I was one of them), and nobody cried! Here, they are on the "feelings train," but not to the degree that Robin was. No body has been grilled and pressured to dive into the "hole" yet. So, in a way, I kind of look like an expert on lots of the feelings stuff. I guess Robin trained us well. The torture was worth something.

In addition to having 7 residents, there are also 6 staff chaplains in the department. So, the hospital has 13 chaplains covering fewer beds than S-burg which had a total of 5 chaplains. My schedule is Sun.-Thurs. Some people have a Tues.-Sat. schedule. Some shifts are 8-4:30 and some are 12:30-9p. This gives a much fuller coverage of chaplains over the hospital all seven days a week. It also means that the only days when everyone is in the office are Tues.-Thurs.

The ED is not classified a Trauma I Center, or Trauma II for that matter. It has no classification, and neither do the other two hospitals in town. It's not classified here as a Trauma I Center, because it just doesn't meet all the criteria necessary. However, it still gets all the same traumas as anywhere else because, heck, where else are they going to go? Therefore, chaplains get paged to Status 1 traumas and Status 2 (less severe) traumas. So far, the two Status 2s I've been to wouldn't have been worthy of paging a chaplain were I still in S-burg. But, oh well.

As far as patients go, the grief is the same. Their pain is universal. That part is no different. The culture here, however, is. There's a strong Catholic presence. As well, the diversity is significant. For example, in the Anchorage public school system there are 90 different languages spoken by students. This illustrates the hodge-podge of cultural diversity in the city. Good thing Robin had us do a diversity didactic.

More differences later, as the pop up. All right, yaars, that's what I'm into now. Being here makes me miss you. I think about you everyday and how truly fun it was back at ol' SRHS. Adios.