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Professional Healthcare Chaplains are frequently tapped to serve as clinical ethics consultants, as members of institutional ethics committees, and even to oversee the work of ethics programs, yet many report lacking the knowledge and skills they need to do this work successfully. This course will use both didactic and case-based methods to promote learners’ competency in navigating frequently encountered ethical dilemmas such as requests for potentially non-beneficial care, patient refusals of basic nursing and medical care, the allocation of scarce resources, and duty to care for the patient vs. duty to protect staff from harm. Specific attention will be given to cases where religious beliefs are a driving feature of ethical conflict and to ensuring chaplains appreciate the critical role they play on ethics committees.

Faculty

M. Jeanne Wirpsa, MA, BCC, HEC-C

M. Jeanne Wirpsa has over 30 years’ experience as an educator/researcher, professional healthcare chaplain, and clinical ethicist. She currently serves as Director for Medical Ethics for the Northwestern Medicine Healthcare System with primary oversight for clinical ethics at the Academic Medical Center in downtown Chicago. The AMC Medical Ethics Program boasts a robust clinical consultation service (~650/year) that serves both inpatient and ambulatory centers, promotes ethical competency of providers through innovative education, and embraces a “preventive ethics” model by embedding in high acuity units and specialty clinics and developing policies and approaches to promote ethical care for cutting edge medical technologies.

Ms. Wirpsa did doctoral studies in religious and social ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and completed a clinical medical ethics fellowship at the MacLean Center at the University of Chicago Medical Center where she now serves as faculty. She also teaches in the McGaw Bioethics Scholars Program and Master’s in Bioethics Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities. Ms. Wirpsa’s academic interests focus on the intersection of religion, bioethics, and medicine; interprofessional shared decision making; mitigating moral distress/promoting ethical climate in healthcare; and ethical issues in the care of culturally and socio-economically marginalized populations.

Matthew Mariani, MDiv, BCC, HEC-C

Matthew Mariani has nearly a decade of experience as a healthcare chaplain and first responder chaplain. Matthew currently serves as the staff chaplain for surgery, neurology, & orthopedics at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago where he also serves as a representative of the department of Spiritual Care & Education on the medical ethics committee. At Northwestern Memorial he has collaborated with the ethics consultation service and multidisciplinary partners to improve ethical consultation visibility and utilization in intensive care units, resulting in a process improvement project that was presented by the team at the 20th International Conference on Clinical Ethics Consultation in June 2026.

Matthew is completing a Doctor of Ministry in Integrated Chaplaincy at Vanderbilt University with a thesis on the spiritual assessment of organ transplant patients. He completed education in ethics through the Northwestern Clinical Bioethics Scholars Program at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine with work focused on chaplaincy education on medical ethics and collaboration within ethical consultation. Matthew received his MDiv from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and a BA in Philosophy & Religion from Truman State University. Matthew is a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church and endorsed by the United Methodist Endorsing Agency for healthcare chaplaincy.

Cate Beaulieu-Desjardins, MDiv, MA, MPH, BCC

Cate Beaulieu-Desjardins is a leader in spiritual care research in pediatrics both nationally and internationally. Cate is the Assistant Director for Research Formation at Transforming Chaplaincy and an Assistant Professor within Rush University College of Health Sciences in Religion, Health, and Human Values. Cate completed the Transforming Chaplaincy Research Fellowship in 2019, earning her MPH in Epidemiology (University of Cincinnati), and later an MA in Advanced Research Methods in Theology (KU Leuven). She will complete an MsT in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford in 2026. She is co-editor for the forthcoming book Case Studies in Pediatric Chaplaincy (Pickwick). Cate concurrently serves as the Director of the Anabaptist Center for Health Care Ethics and Mennonite Health Care Fellowship.

Certification and Spots

• Continuing Ed: A certificate for 16 hours of research-related Continuing Education will be distributed upon request.
• Maximum Participants: 45 spots available; a waitlist will be created once spots are full.

Cost

• General: $399 per participant
• Discounts:
  • Member of TC Research Network (Mighty Networks) - $379
  • Member of Pediatric Chaplains Network - $359
  • Alumni of TC Education Programs - $359
  • Student (with proof of enrollment) - $359

Note: Your place is only held once invoice payment is completed. Participants affiliated with Providence, IU Health, or Houston Methodist require manager approval for a partnership scholarship.

Additional Information

• Preparation: Zoom Link and Pre-Reading Materials will be sent approximately 1 week before the start of the course and should require no more than 1-2 hours of preparation.
• Contact: For questions, please contact Hailey Malcolm at hailey_v_malcolm@rush.edu.

​Transforming Chaplaincy: Advancing Spiritual Care Through Research​
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​Vision: We envision a future when chaplaincy is formed, informed, and transformed by evidence-based practice
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​Mission: The mission of Transforming Chaplaincy is to promote evidence-based spiritual care and integrate research into professional practice and education by fostering a culture of inquiry

Our mailing address is:​
Transforming Chaplaincy
Rush University Medical Center
Department of Religion, Health, and Human Values
1653 West Congress Parkway
Chicago, IL 60612