From Resume Virtues to Eulogy Virtues: Moral Formation for Baccalaureate Healthcare Students
Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD, Duke University, Durham, NC; Kimbell Kornu, MD, PhD, Belmont University, Nashville, TN; Travis Pickell, PhD, MDiv, George Fox University, Newberg, OR; and Katie Rowland, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Columnist David Brooks has suggested what might come to define one’s life. “The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?” While university mission statements often speak of values and character (the eulogy virtues), it is undeniable that higher education largely prioritizes the resume virtues.
Recently, there has been an increased interest in the formation of character (i.e., eulogy virtues) in medical education. Some wonder, however, whether this is too little, too late. Our panel asks, what if the formation of character and moral vision occurred at an earlier stage, at the baccalaureate level? How does one work to cultivate eulogy virtues in pre-professional baccalaureate students? How, specifically, might religious frameworks inform and shape virtue cultivation? How and why might theology be incorporated explicitly or implicitly as part of these character curricular innovations?
A psychiatrist and theologian at an elite university in the south will discuss a summer program for college students on cultivating purpose in healthcare through the medical humanities. The primary aim of the program is to call students out of an individualistic view of the humanities as self-formation, and focus on overcoming the culture of hypercompetitive academic striving that marks pre-med and medical education. The curriculum asks, what does it look like to think about identity and vocation as essentially related to communities and places, rather than achievements?
A palliative care physician and theologian at a Christian university in the south will discuss an approach to teaching a medicine and religion course designed for pre-health students. Medicine and religion address ultimate questions regarding life, death, and suffering, so critically examining their relationship is an excellent way to focus the moral formation of students. But the modern mind sees medicine and religion in conflict. The course re-frames the relationship between medicine and religion to create the space for theology to be a constructive voice in moral formation, exploring historical, ethical, and practical dimensions. The curriculum is loosely modeled after the classical education model of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The grammar section takes a genealogical approach to show that medicine and religion have been in harmony and that the current conflict is the historical exception. The logic section critically examines contemporary theoretical frameworks of medicine and religion. The rhetoric section addresses how to approach specific issues of religion in medicine such as suffering, miracles, and end-of-life care.
An assistant professor of surgery at an elite private secular university in the midwest will present a year long for credit character based educational initiative. The Scholars in Ethics and Medicine (SEM) course was developed to cultivate wisdom and promote character development in baccalaureate pre-health students, with the goal of preparing students to flourish in medicine and in life. The SEM students together learn the philosophy of Aristotelian virtue ethics and explore the virtues that foster humanistic medical care. Students learn from exemplar physicians who highlight the character strengths that facilitate respectful and compassionate care. Through participation in seminars, dinner discussions, and mentorship, students are encouraged to reflect on the meaning and moral practice of medicine and to cultivate their own character as they aspire to join the medical profession.
An ethics professor at a Quaker university in the pacific northwest will discuss a cohort-based model of character education called “The Integrated Life in Healthcare.” This model is based on a theory of change that emphasizes the primacy of self-knowledge, vulnerability, and community for the formation of moral vision that leads to flourishing in vocations of healthcare. This paper focuses on the particular challenges and opportunities that arise in a Christian higher education context, where the curriculum arises out of a specific theological understanding of human flourishing being intimately tied up with the right ordering of the love of God, neighbor, and self. How is such rightly ordered love expressed in other virtues like attention, compassion, courage, faith and hope? What do each of these look like in healthcare settings? What are the factors that undermine such virtues in practice? How does one address problems like moral distress and fragmentation with students who have limited clinical experience?
Recently, there has been an increased interest in the formation of character (i.e., eulogy virtues) in medical education. Some wonder, however, whether this is too little, too late. Our panel asks, what if the formation of character and moral vision occurred at an earlier stage, at the baccalaureate level? How does one work to cultivate eulogy virtues in pre-professional baccalaureate students? How, specifically, might religious frameworks inform and shape virtue cultivation? How and why might theology be incorporated explicitly or implicitly as part of these character curricular innovations?
A psychiatrist and theologian at an elite university in the south will discuss a summer program for college students on cultivating purpose in healthcare through the medical humanities. The primary aim of the program is to call students out of an individualistic view of the humanities as self-formation, and focus on overcoming the culture of hypercompetitive academic striving that marks pre-med and medical education. The curriculum asks, what does it look like to think about identity and vocation as essentially related to communities and places, rather than achievements?
A palliative care physician and theologian at a Christian university in the south will discuss an approach to teaching a medicine and religion course designed for pre-health students. Medicine and religion address ultimate questions regarding life, death, and suffering, so critically examining their relationship is an excellent way to focus the moral formation of students. But the modern mind sees medicine and religion in conflict. The course re-frames the relationship between medicine and religion to create the space for theology to be a constructive voice in moral formation, exploring historical, ethical, and practical dimensions. The curriculum is loosely modeled after the classical education model of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The grammar section takes a genealogical approach to show that medicine and religion have been in harmony and that the current conflict is the historical exception. The logic section critically examines contemporary theoretical frameworks of medicine and religion. The rhetoric section addresses how to approach specific issues of religion in medicine such as suffering, miracles, and end-of-life care.
An assistant professor of surgery at an elite private secular university in the midwest will present a year long for credit character based educational initiative. The Scholars in Ethics and Medicine (SEM) course was developed to cultivate wisdom and promote character development in baccalaureate pre-health students, with the goal of preparing students to flourish in medicine and in life. The SEM students together learn the philosophy of Aristotelian virtue ethics and explore the virtues that foster humanistic medical care. Students learn from exemplar physicians who highlight the character strengths that facilitate respectful and compassionate care. Through participation in seminars, dinner discussions, and mentorship, students are encouraged to reflect on the meaning and moral practice of medicine and to cultivate their own character as they aspire to join the medical profession.
An ethics professor at a Quaker university in the pacific northwest will discuss a cohort-based model of character education called “The Integrated Life in Healthcare.” This model is based on a theory of change that emphasizes the primacy of self-knowledge, vulnerability, and community for the formation of moral vision that leads to flourishing in vocations of healthcare. This paper focuses on the particular challenges and opportunities that arise in a Christian higher education context, where the curriculum arises out of a specific theological understanding of human flourishing being intimately tied up with the right ordering of the love of God, neighbor, and self. How is such rightly ordered love expressed in other virtues like attention, compassion, courage, faith and hope? What do each of these look like in healthcare settings? What are the factors that undermine such virtues in practice? How does one address problems like moral distress and fragmentation with students who have limited clinical experience?