Strategies of Enchantment: Three M.D.'s Build Frameworks for Spirituality
Tacey Rosolowiski, PhD., Research Medical Library, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Though scientists live in an empirical, objective world, and many reject traditional religious systems, they do not necessarily abandon the need to find meaning and spiritual experience in their lives. Many become what Elaine Howard Ecklund calls, “spiritual entrepreneurs.” These spiritual-but-not-religious individuals construct a spiritual system that “unifies the various spheres of life,” including “engagement with the ethical dimensions of community living.” One group of spiritual-but-not-religious scientists that has not been investigated, however, are physicians and physician-scientists. This group is very engaged with “community living.” Many of them think about science, in part, as an instrument, and they undertook scientific, medical training in order to serve and heal others: they conduct research with the understanding that their scientific discoveries will have a direct impact on the patients they serve. In addition, by virtue of their intellectual training, these individuals harness formidable powers to organize information, conceptualize systems, and to interpret what they see in service of their need for a spiritual system that traverses different arenas of life.
This paper will discuss such three physicians who have research and well as clinical careers, and who have created systems that enable them to find meaning –and even spiritual vitality-- in professional life. My cases are drawn from interviews conducted for MD Anderson Cancer Center’s institutional oral history project, and my method of analysis combines three main elements to answer the question, How does a clinician achieve this in practical terms? I rely on Maria Rogińska’s amalgam thesis to identify the specific intellectual site where these individuals link scientific and extra-scientific issues. I draw Susan Folkman’s and Crystal Park’s work on meaning-making models to examine the questions each individual addresses in generating meaning. Finally, I rely on techniques of close literary reading to give access to the thought processes these clinicians find coherence and generate their meaning models. .
As a demonstration of the amalgam thesis, I discuss an interview subject who envisions one core principle of universal order that she sees repeated in many arenas of life. A second interview subject grounds spirituality in collective action and provides an example of how Park and Folkman’s concept of global meaning teases out the inner workings of the amalgam thesis. Selections from a final interview subject illustrate how literary analysis can highlight thought processes –particularly those related to analogical thinking—that feed the model-building essential to creating coherence.
These cases hint at the wide variety of approaches that clinicians (and all scientist) may take to create their own spiritual systems. In addition, they also have provocative implications for institutions. As pressures in healthcare and biomedicine mount, institutions face challenges in building practitioners’ engagement with institutional values. These examples show how clinicians and researchers create a variety of strategies to align their own values with the mission and values of their institution.
Though scientists live in an empirical, objective world, and many reject traditional religious systems, they do not necessarily abandon the need to find meaning and spiritual experience in their lives. Many become what Elaine Howard Ecklund calls, “spiritual entrepreneurs.” These spiritual-but-not-religious individuals construct a spiritual system that “unifies the various spheres of life,” including “engagement with the ethical dimensions of community living.” One group of spiritual-but-not-religious scientists that has not been investigated, however, are physicians and physician-scientists. This group is very engaged with “community living.” Many of them think about science, in part, as an instrument, and they undertook scientific, medical training in order to serve and heal others: they conduct research with the understanding that their scientific discoveries will have a direct impact on the patients they serve. In addition, by virtue of their intellectual training, these individuals harness formidable powers to organize information, conceptualize systems, and to interpret what they see in service of their need for a spiritual system that traverses different arenas of life.
This paper will discuss such three physicians who have research and well as clinical careers, and who have created systems that enable them to find meaning –and even spiritual vitality-- in professional life. My cases are drawn from interviews conducted for MD Anderson Cancer Center’s institutional oral history project, and my method of analysis combines three main elements to answer the question, How does a clinician achieve this in practical terms? I rely on Maria Rogińska’s amalgam thesis to identify the specific intellectual site where these individuals link scientific and extra-scientific issues. I draw Susan Folkman’s and Crystal Park’s work on meaning-making models to examine the questions each individual addresses in generating meaning. Finally, I rely on techniques of close literary reading to give access to the thought processes these clinicians find coherence and generate their meaning models. .
As a demonstration of the amalgam thesis, I discuss an interview subject who envisions one core principle of universal order that she sees repeated in many arenas of life. A second interview subject grounds spirituality in collective action and provides an example of how Park and Folkman’s concept of global meaning teases out the inner workings of the amalgam thesis. Selections from a final interview subject illustrate how literary analysis can highlight thought processes –particularly those related to analogical thinking—that feed the model-building essential to creating coherence.
These cases hint at the wide variety of approaches that clinicians (and all scientist) may take to create their own spiritual systems. In addition, they also have provocative implications for institutions. As pressures in healthcare and biomedicine mount, institutions face challenges in building practitioners’ engagement with institutional values. These examples show how clinicians and researchers create a variety of strategies to align their own values with the mission and values of their institution.