Many medical schools are now offering students spirituality training -- stressing the role of a patient's spiritual beliefs within the healing process, according to a report in Internal Medicine News.The teaching of religion and spirituality is absolutely essential for any holistic notion of healing, said Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, the John Carroll Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Georgetown University School of Medicine, in Washington, DC in an interview with the newspaper.
At least 20 medical schools nationwide already include spirituality in their curriculum. A recent conference on the issue, held in Washington, DC, was sponsored by the non-profit National Institute for Healthcare Research of Rockville, Maryland. That conference ended with a resolution to publish a 'consensus report' that other schools could use when developing their own spirituality programs.
Research is revealing that a rich spiritual life may actually improve patient outcomes. As reported last week, a 28-year study of over 5,000 California residents discovered that regular churchgoers had lower death rates and better overall health than those who stayed home on Sundays.
Dr. Dale Matthews, associate professor of medicine at Georgetown, and senior fellow at the NIHR, said the spirituality movement is part of a general trend away from disease-centered care to a more patient-centered approach to healing.
Matthews himself conducts 'spiritual interviews' with patients during routine medical examinations. Such discussions revolve around individual patient beliefs that may someday help them cope with illness.
Such interviews may also yield information important to treatment decision. For example, some Christian groups do not accept blood transfusions.
Dr. Christina Puchalski, NIHR conference co-chair and internal medicine resident at George Washington Medical Center, said spiritual talks also make the doctor-patient relationship stronger. People are more trusting and more willing to talk to you about areas in their life that are problems, she explained to Internal Medicine News.
Of course, critics worry that the trend toward spirituality in medicine may lead to an emphasis on specific dogmas.
Puchalski disagrees. Spirituality is usually a relationship with God, she said, but for others, it's a connection with nature or music. It's whatever or whomever gives your life meaning.
Still, opposition to the trend continues. There are the hard core medical types, Matthews admitted, the people concerned (that the movement) is promoting a religion, and the people who say 'we don't have time for this' or 'leave it to the chaplains.'
Puchalski believes stories from individual patients point to a real need. Such was the case with one of her patients suffering from terminal breast cancer. The woman revealed that, visiting the hospital, she felt outwardly anonymous, like any other patient needing care. What makes me different are my beliefs, she told Puchalski. My spirituality helps me cope with my dying. It's the most important part of my life. And I want my doctor to know about the most important part of my life.
July 15, 1997
SOURCE: Internal Medicine News
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