c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The National Institute for Healthcare Research awarded its second annual round of grants Tuesday (Aug. 27) to medical schools offering courses that train doctors to be aware of the connections between spirituality and clinical care.

The curricula do not aim to turn physicians into chaplains, but rather help them to be as adept at understanding patients’ spiritual issues as they are at detailing medical histories.”Although science gives us physicians power, power without human values is frequently meaningless, if not downright dangerous. When looking into the abyss, a patient needs more than just … a good dialysis machine. The values have to be there,”said Dr. Stephen S. Lefrak, a professor of medicine and assistant dean at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, one of the winners of a $10,000 grant funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

The other 1996-97 recipients of the John Templeton Faith and Medicine Curricular Awards are Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland; Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta; George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C.; and Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center of West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va.

At the West Virginia University medical school, a second-year required course will help students learn how religious commitment relates to health care, acquire skills to interview patients about their spiritual lives and help students understand their own spirituality.”The individual doctor-to-be will really delve into what their spiritual journey has been like and how that will affect people in their practice in the future,”said Chaplain Vaughn Michael, director of pastoral care at West Virginia University Hospitals.

Though such courses have been offered on an optional basis in some schools, five of the six programs recognized this year include required courses.

More than a quarter of the nation’s 126 medical schools have applied for the grants, said Dr. Dale Matthews, director of the Faith and Medicine Program at the National Institute for Healthcare Research, a non-profit group that collects research on religion and medicine. Among the criteria is a”scholarly, balanced approach”to science and spirituality in the course. Preference is given to courses that are required, he said.

Matthews considers the interest in the grants to be a sign of a”historic transformation”in medical education.”It’s the science that seems to grab the medical schools,”he said, pointing to data that show religious commitment is a factor in longer survival and better quality of life for patients.”Theology is changing to some degree and it’s not as threatened by science. It’s a win-win type of situation.” A primary goal of the recognized programs is to help doctors-in-training recognize that the beliefs of their patients may be a factor in their health care. But some of the medical educators honored Tuesday said it is also important for the clinicians to be aware of their own faith perspectives as they work in the medical field.

Dr. Christina M. Puchalski, a resident in internal medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine, said,”It’s my theory that the reason physicians don’t ask these questions is because they’re uncomfortable with themselves.” Dr. Scott Frank, an associate professor of family medicine at Case Western’s school of medicine, recounted how a 45-year-old patient told him that God had sent her to him.”A divine referral,”he recalled of the incident a decade ago.”This was new to me.” In the course of his work with the patient, Frank prayed with her and found that the prayers accelerated her recovery.”My prayers had come to heal me as much as they did her,”he said.

Several of the award recipients, who spoke at a news conference at the National Press Club, noted the importance of understanding how various religious beliefs can affect patient’s health behavior _ from diet and exercise to views about death and dying.

Dr. Gregory Pawlson, chairman of the department of health care sciences at George Washington University School of Medicine, said even agnostic and atheistic patients deal with spiritual pain along with their physical and emotional challenges.”These people have spiritual needs that are every bit as great as those who espouse a traditional religion,”he said.

Chaplain Bryant Kendrick of the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest said the training will help doctors to better handle spiritual questions that arise.”It’s important for the physician to be able to do something other than be silent,”he said.

But Kendrick emphasized that doctors will not be taught to proselytize.”We want our physicians to understand this is a powerful dynamic that needs to be handled with love and with care,”he said.

Frank, of Case Western, emphasized that doctors should consider the spiritual aspects of all patients, not just those who have terminal illnesses.”It’s for everybody who walks into a primary care office,”he said.

Emory University is the only Templeton grant recipient whose program does not require its medical students to take a course studying the link between spirituality and medicine. But Dr. Mary Lynn Dell, an assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Emory’s medical school and an ordained Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister, said the school also has a required medical ethics curriculum.

The grants were funded by the John Templeton Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Radnor, Pa., that underwrites projects linking science and religion, spirituality and health and education.

As evidence of the need for these programs, Dr. David B. Larson, president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research, cited research published in Time magazine in June of 1,004 American adults surveyed about faith and medicine. Eighty-two percent said they believed in the healing power of personal prayer or spiritual faith and 64 percent said doctors should join patients in prayer if the patients request it.

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