Electives - Humanities in Medicine

Suffering, Medicine and Faith

Elective Number: 3514 (arranged)

Course Supervisor: Dr. Margaret Mohrmann

Duration: maximum 4 weeks; minimum 2 weeks

Available: Not Available 2007-2008 - Class of 2008; 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 13- Class of 2009

Time to Report: TBA with Dr. Mohrmann prior to beginning

Place to Report: Dr. Mohrmann's office, Barringer 5363

Attendance: Attendance at elective activities is mandatory.

• Anyone who is ill or has a personal or family emergency must contact Student Affairs and the Attending on Service.
• Students are allowed to take off up to 1 day per week to interview between November 1 and February 1.
  • Specific days missed must be approved by the Attending on Service.

Number of students per rotation: 2

Course Description: This is a mentored independent study course during which the student will undertake an in-depth exploration of the interrelation of suffering, medicine and faith, with a particular focus on some aspect of that field. The general topic area encompasses the connections between patients' and physicians' spiritual and/or religious beliefs and practices and their understandings of and approaches to health, illness, suffering and death.

Students will read extensively in a variety of literary forms, research specific questions of their choosing, and participate in discussions of the material and of their related clinical experiences with Dr. Mohrmann. Each student will design and complete a project - a paper, teaching module, art work, or the like, as determined in discussion with Dr. Mohrmann - relevant to and expressive of the course content.

Students who participate fully in this elective should expect to broaden and deepen their knowledge of spirituality and religion in general; spiritual and religious aspects of illness and healing, including culturally and spiritually determined meanings of illness, suffering, and death; and spiritual and religious questions raised by suffering. They should be prepared to analyze medicine as a “spirituality” with its own cosmologies, liturgies, and rituals, and to discuss potential conflicts between medical and spiritual beliefs.

By exploring this topic, students should expect to improve their skills in recognizing and discussing, with patients and with colleagues, spiritual issues in relation to medicine; in critical analysis of relevant literature and studies; in weighing the place and value of “spiritual assessment” of patients; and in identifying and responding appropriately to the spiritual needs, questions, and requests of their patients.

They should also expect to refine professional attitudes that will enable them to be respectfully attentive to spiritual issues as they arise in practice; to recognize and appropriately honor professional boundaries; and to practice a level of self-awareness about their own spirituality that will enable their knowledge and skills in this regard to be of most help to their patients.

This description is a general overview. In consultation with dr. Mohrmann, the student will choose specific areas of interest within the broader field.