A Paradigm Shift for the Integration of Spirituality and Medicine
Nathan Gilley, Doctor of Medicine, Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University
2016 Student Essay Award Winner
Recently, the prevailing paradigm of medicine seems to have shifted to a more amenable view of spirituality that asks how patient spirituality can be integrated with medicine to improve medical outcomes. This basic query often assumes that spirituality is a homogenous entity and that spirituality can be brought into the domain of medicine. But the paradigms of spirituality are not homogenous and they do not necessarily offer themselves to be studied through the lens of medicine or for the aims of medicine. Spiritual paradigms are lenses and aims within themselves, not simple tools to be used or adjuvant therapies to be added. Within the realm of spirituality there are paradigms that consider themselves to be fundamentally opposed, paradigms that consider themselves to be all-inclusive and others that are utterly exclusive. There are specific religions that are protective against medical pathologies and others that are risk factors for the same.
The paradigm of medicine and the paradigms of faith, though complimentary in their many short term objectives, are intrinsically antagonistic in their consuming natures and competing philosophical foundations. In response to this problem a new starting point is needed. Rather than attempting to meld all forms of spirituality into our practice of medicine, a reversal of the integration would consider how medicine could fit into a specific spiritual paradigm. In order for medicine to expand its scope of practice beyond the material body, it must open itself to critique from and integration under paradigms beyond empirical rationalism.
So I inverted the questions and started with a particular form of spirituality, Christianity, and asked how Christianity could coherently use the practice of medicine? I sought to begin developing that answer by breaking down the philosophical foundations of medicine and considering how each could be used and understood from a Christian view point. After working through the philosophical problems I began addressing how Christian medicine would work itself out in practice. Hopefully, this is a spring board for honest discussion among those of us in medicine who consider our faith to be the ultimate truth of our lives.
2016 Student Essay Award Winner
Recently, the prevailing paradigm of medicine seems to have shifted to a more amenable view of spirituality that asks how patient spirituality can be integrated with medicine to improve medical outcomes. This basic query often assumes that spirituality is a homogenous entity and that spirituality can be brought into the domain of medicine. But the paradigms of spirituality are not homogenous and they do not necessarily offer themselves to be studied through the lens of medicine or for the aims of medicine. Spiritual paradigms are lenses and aims within themselves, not simple tools to be used or adjuvant therapies to be added. Within the realm of spirituality there are paradigms that consider themselves to be fundamentally opposed, paradigms that consider themselves to be all-inclusive and others that are utterly exclusive. There are specific religions that are protective against medical pathologies and others that are risk factors for the same.
The paradigm of medicine and the paradigms of faith, though complimentary in their many short term objectives, are intrinsically antagonistic in their consuming natures and competing philosophical foundations. In response to this problem a new starting point is needed. Rather than attempting to meld all forms of spirituality into our practice of medicine, a reversal of the integration would consider how medicine could fit into a specific spiritual paradigm. In order for medicine to expand its scope of practice beyond the material body, it must open itself to critique from and integration under paradigms beyond empirical rationalism.
So I inverted the questions and started with a particular form of spirituality, Christianity, and asked how Christianity could coherently use the practice of medicine? I sought to begin developing that answer by breaking down the philosophical foundations of medicine and considering how each could be used and understood from a Christian view point. After working through the philosophical problems I began addressing how Christian medicine would work itself out in practice. Hopefully, this is a spring board for honest discussion among those of us in medicine who consider our faith to be the ultimate truth of our lives.