Featured News — VCU College of Health Professions

From conference rooms to quiet moments, our impact is real

As we near the conclusion of 2025 and prepare for 2026, the Patient Counseling Department continues to flourish. This year our faculty, staff, students and alumni have celebrated numerous accomplishments, each contributing meaningfully to the field of professional chaplaincy. The Spiritual Care Department has remained unwavering in offering evidence-based, proactive and reactive spiritual care interventions to patients, their loved ones and members of the interdisciplinary team.

VCU researcher makes the business case for spiritual care in health care

Kelsey White, Ph.D., assistant professor and chaplaincy faculty researcher at VCU’s College of Health Professions, took the stage at the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Congress of Healthcare Leadership in March. The room in Houston, Texas, was filled with hospital CEOs, COOs and other senior executives whom White and her co-presenters challenged to consider the importance of an often overlooked part of clinical service: spiritual care.

The state of chaplaincy is strong at VCU

Few images conjure more solemnity than a room full of chaplains at an academic conference. But the 2025 Association of Professional Chaplains Annual Conference could have been mistaken for a basketball game at the Siegel Center every time VCU was mentioned.

The newest Pediatric Chaplains Network President serves patients and students with heart at VCU

When Calvin Bradley Jr. walks into a hospital room, he’s not thinking about medical charts or machinery. He’s thinking about the child in front of him — and what that child needs most in that moment. Sometimes, it’s reassurance. Sometimes, it’s a prayer. And sometimes, it’s as simple as a sweet treat.

‘Called to stand in the breach’: a VCU chaplain’s journey

When Addison Schmitt Morgan entered the Post-baccalaureate Graduate Certificate in Patient Counseling program at VCU in the summer of 2023, she wasn’t entirely sure what lay ahead. She was midway through her Master of Divinity studies at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and wanted to discern whether chaplaincy was truly her calling. The program gave her the clarity she had been looking for.

How VCU helped shape Bishop Teresa Snorton’s path of ministry and healing

Bishop Teresa E. Snorton has carried her experience at VCU with her across decades, pulpits and continents. Long after she finished her postgraduate certificate in Patient Counseling – now part of the College of Health Professions – she still finds herself looking back to her time in Richmond and VCU.

Grief Awareness Day 2025

On Saturday, August 30, VCU Health honored National Grief Awareness Day. This day is very important to many across our enterprise. Many units lit candles during their huddles to honor grief experienced by their staff and patients. Light shone from the windows of the VCU College of Health Professions building. And at six locations across the health system, the Spiritual Care Department and the Grief Bereavement Committee offered resources and support as well as a community mural project.

Spiritual Care Week 2025

Celebrate four decades of profound community impact as Spiritual Care Week reaches its 40th anniversary!

VCU Health hosts community walk to celebrate King's legacy

"Braving temperatures in the mid-20s and a stiff west wind — and launched by the Black Awakening Choir‘s “Faithful, Faithful is Our God” — some 150 people joined in VCU Health‘s community walk to celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Atheist chaplains are forging a new path in a changing world

Jason S. Callahan serves as an instructor in the Department of Patient Counseling, College of Health Professions, and as a chaplain for the Thomas Palliative Care Unit in VCU Massey Cancer Center. He provides pastoral care to patients, families and staff. Read about his approach to chaplaincy on CNN.