Spirituality and Healing in Medicine: Times Have Changed for the Better

Boston, Dec. 16/PRNewswire/ -- Spirituality and healing are rapidly becoming integrated into mainstream American medicine, observed Herbert Benson, M.D., president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His conclusion is based on new figures showing greater examination of spirituality's impact on health and mental health, increased attention to the topic in medical schools and residency training curriculums, and recommendations for assessment of patients' spiritual needs by physicians and health care organizations nationally. Dr. Benson, also chief of the division of behavioral medicine and the Mind/Body Medical Institute Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, applauded these achievements at the three-day SPIRITUALITY & HEALING IN MEDICINE Harvard School Department of Continuing Education course opening today in Boston.

"Over the last ten years, we have witnessed a substantial growth in the role and application of spirituality and healing in medicine," said Dr. Benson. "It is our hope that this evolution will continue and build momentum for more widespread acceptance by managed care organizations and insurers."

Since 1990, almost 1,500 research studies, research reviews, articles and clinical trials have been published on the connection of spirituality or religion to medicine and health  a figure equal to the total of all such pieces published prior to 1990. Based on this output, the relationship between spirituality and healing and medicine is rapidly becoming a major area for clinical research.

"The number of research studies documenting the healing effects of spirituality and religion is significant," said Harold G. Koenig, M.D., associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center. "We are astounded and thrilled with the explosion of research in the past ten years. These studies have explored almost all aspects of medicine, from kidney disease to sexual dysfunction. The collective findings and positive results indicate that we've just broken the surface. Imagine what the next ten years will bring."

The desire to include spirituality and healing in medicine has also reached consumers. According to a USA Today Weekend poll, 63 percent of Americans would like their physician to discuss spirituality with them.

To meet this need, medical schools and residency training programs across the country have taken notice and have begun to integrate such clinical and care approaches into their curricula. Medical schools in the United States providing coursework or lectures on the topic of spirituality have dramatically increased from four in 1992 to 79 in 2000  more than half the total of all medical schools in this country.

"The medical education community now recognizes the growing desire of patients for their doctors to extend care beyond textbook medicine," said Christina Puchalski, M.D., assistant professor at George Washington University School of Medicine and director of education at the National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR). "It is compelling to us as both researchers and physicians emerging from the classroom with a greater understanding of how spirituality and healing can impact medicine."

David Larson, M.D., NIHR president, believes that there has been an amazing paradigm shift in the movement of physicians towards spirituality in medicine. "What I've found in my research is that when patients are seriously or chronically ill, they frequently use their spiritual or religious beliefs to cope," explained Dr. Larson. "It gives them a sense of hope, a sense of control and a sense of purpose through the stress of their illness. If their physician can be attentive and responsive to this need, it might mean a great deal to their patient in the midst of their suffering."

Over the past ten years, the importance of patients' spirituality has been accepted by some of the nation's leading medical and healthcare organizations. In a 1999 consensus report, the American College of Physicians and the American Society of Internal Medicine suggested that physician care include a review of, and attentiveness to, psychosocial, existential or spiritual suffering of patients with serious medical illness.

A year earlier, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the body charged with evaluating and accrediting nearly 19,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States, established Spiritual Assessment Standards as a response to the growing need for a greater understanding of how spirituality impacts patient care and service.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) acknowledged spirituality's potential in medicine in a 1999 Medical School Objectives Project (MSOP) report. MSOP, the program that sets forth learning objectives for medical students, stated, among other criteria, that before graduation, students will have demonstrated to the satisfaction of the faculty, "the ability to elicit a spiritual history as well as an understanding that the spiritual dimension of people's lives is an avenue for compassionate care giving."

Many of these milestones over the last ten years can be attributed to initiatives funded by The John Templeton Foundation, The Fetzer Institute, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. With more published studies have come more attention from previously silent funding sources. The scope and sheer number of these trials has recently led the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to begin undertaking their own reviews of the research. "If it wasn't for The Templeton Foundation paving the way," says Dr. Larson, "we would not have access to the current levels of funding as well as the levels of clinician and research recognition."

"It is amazing to look back and see how far we've come," said Dr. Benson, founder of the Spirituality and Healing in Medicine educational course. "In looking ahead to the future, I see our next advances being with managed care organizations. The science of spirituality has established itself as a credible field of exploration; our goal now is to see it covered by insurance carriers. My hope is that it won't take another ten years."

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