Science and Soul: Med Schools Mandate Spirituality Courses
Cancer patients, oncologists and others involved in the cancer experience often struggle to find the compassion and emotional strength they need to continue battling the difficult disease. An article published by American Medical Association reports more and more medical colleges are trying to raise the level of compassion in healthcare settings by mandating spiritually-based courses for future doctors.
The article, which appears in the online March 2008 edition of AMNews, states approximately two-thirds of US medical schools now include spirituality courses in their formal curriculum and half currently require completion of at least one medically-related spirituality course prior to graduation.
In the early 1990’s, 2% of medical colleges offered spiritually-based classes — by 2004 that percentage had risen to 67%.
Advocates of the new spirituality programs say they aren’t designed to push religion, but rather to increase a doctor’s understanding of how beliefs about God, family, naturalism, humanism, or the arts influences an individual’s health, perceptions of their care or illness, and their interactions with other people.
At the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (SMBS), spiritual coursework has medical students exploring their own spirituality and spending time making rounds with hospital chaplains. Other courses teach students how to appropriately address the topic of faith while recording patient medical histories so these future physicians will be able to take those beliefs into account when they evaluate their patient’s healthcare needs. As one med school professor explained,
“If a patient believes in the power of prayer and practices this daily, in addition to recommending therapies such as the nicotine replacement patch and a smoking cessation group, why not encourage him or her to pray for the strength to quit smoking?”
David Holmes, MD
Family Physician and
Clinical Assistant Professor, University at Buffalo, SMBS
If you’d like to learn more about programs bringing spirituality to cancer care you can visit the National Cancer Institute’s Spirituality in Cancer PDQ® web site.
Source: American Medical News
Related Links: Nurse.com; Accepted Admissions Almanac; pluralism.org
Related Podcast: Medical procedure designed for Jehovah’s Witnesses from NPR
Technorati Tags: education; healthcare initiatives; patient-centered care; palliative care; caregiving; holistic medicine; spiritual healing; Atheism; Buddhism; Christianity; Islam; Judaism; LDS; complementary medicine
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