UK HealthCare’s Clinical Pastoral Education program helps prepare future spiritual care leaders
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 20, 2026) — For Diego Acosta, 37, a seminarian for the Catholic Diocese of Lexington spending the summer in UK HealthCare’s Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program, some days at the hospital are challenging and can be emotionally taxing, but some of the most influential moments happen during life’s hardest circumstances.
After a 36-year-old cancer patient died, Acosta sat with a grieving family. He didn’t claim to know all the answers or try to justify why this had happened to them. Instead, he listened.
“I realized how important it is to be just human,” Acosta said. “We don’t need to say many words.”
An often-overlooked member of a hospital support staff is the Pastoral Care team, which at UK HealthCare is led by the Rev. R. Stephen Summers, director of pastoral care. The team is deployed during all code blue and trauma alert events as part of the care team, supporting most end-of-life patient care and a wide range of spiritual care consultation requests.
A chaplain’s presence is often informal and embedded in the daily work within the hospital’s ecosystem, placing them in an opportune position to provide support as needed.
Like many learning programs in the hospital setting, chaplains are often accompanied by pastoral care residents and interns.
The CPE program gives students a hands-on opportunity to provide spiritual care to patients, families and staff at UK HealthCare. CPE offers an extended 15-week fall and spring internship, an intensive 11-week summer internship and a year-long residency program.
Students work alongside chaplains to learn how to help navigate intense moments that arise in healthcare: celebrating recovering, managing a new diagnosis or coping with the loss of a loved one.
Throughout the program, students often deepen their self-awareness, effective spiritual caregiving and knowledge about the specialized ministry of healthcare chaplaincy.
Faith was a constant in Acosta’s life, from his grandmother’s evening prayers to the influence of a missionary nun during his teenage years. Over time, he realized he felt called to share that same kind of love and serve a greater purpose.
After earning a law degree and working as an attorney in his native Mexico, he left the legal field to pursue his priesthood formation in 2015.
“When I was working as an attorney ... we were listening to these people coming to our office ... it was not just about their rights. It was about themselves, feelings, thoughts, their spirit too,” Acosta said.
The Rev. Cam Holzer, Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) Certified Educator at UK HealthCare, is Acosta’s supervisor during his summer internship. She said Acosta’s internship with the CPE program was years in the making when he was a candidate in the 2024 application cycle but had to return to Mexico.
Acosta previously served at Lexington Catholic High School and is sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Lexington; Holzer said she tries to look out for students that seem to have a big heart and openness to learn.
“I’m really grateful to see how much he’s learned and been open to in just few months’ time already,” Holzer said.
A founding accredited ACPE program since 1967, Holzer said UK HealthCare has been training chaplains for decades, with its first CPE student group run at the hospital in 1965.
She said the CPE program can be compared to a small graduate program within the Pastoral Care department.
The CPE program offers no typical day for its interns and residents; it’s a constant learning experience placing them in unique situations every day. These situations typically consist of being present after a code blue event, supporting a family after a difficult diagnosis, praying with a family before a procedure or sitting with someone during end-of-life care.
“This experience is helping me to know myself, to know my feelings, to know and to reconnect with my humanity,” Acosta said.
Acosta plans to become a priest for the Catholic Diocese of Lexington. Like many chaplains in the Lexington community, he will bring lessons from the CPE program into his future ministry, accompanying people through life’s most joyful and difficult moments.
“It has been a great privilege, honor, personal satisfaction to have been a part of the training and formation of the pastoral care capacity of priests throughout Lexington and particularly in their seminary formation time,” Holzer said.
CPE is accepting applications for its 2027 intern and residency programs. Application instructions and requirements can be found on the Pastoral Care website.
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