CPE is the primary method of training hospital and hospice chaplains and spiritual care providers in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
[1] CPE is both a multicultural and interfaith experience that uses real-life ministry encounters of students to improve the care provided by caregivers.
CPE students typically compose "verbatims" of their pastoral care encounters in which they are invited to reflect upon what occurred and draw insight from these reflections that can be implemented in future pastoral care events.
In 1925, Richard Cabot, a physician and adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School, published an article in Survey Graphic suggesting that every candidate for ministry receive clinical training for pastoral work similar to the clinical training offered to medical students.
[6] There are over two hundred and seventy accredited seminary graduate programs with the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) in which some provide specializations in clinical pastoral education.