Toward Healing and Coherence: Spiritual Writing and a Life in Medicine
Jon Tilburt, MD, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ; Aasim Padela, MD, MSc, FACEP, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI; and Daniel Sulmasy, MD, PhD, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Saints, mystics, and spiritually attuned seekers in (or near) multiple traditions have used writing from a first-person and experiential perspective to reflect on life’s challenges, struggles, and insights, relating those to their deepest metaphysical commitments and/or religious traditions. For those who see the practice of medicine as part of a spiritual journey, writing from a first person, experiential perspective that explicitly engages their religious and spiritual perspectives can help healers heal and help them gain a greater sense of coherence in the fragmented world of modern medicine. In this panel presentation, three physician-writers at various stages of engagement with spiritual writing will reflect on its meaning and role in their life. Daniel P. Sulmasy, a physician and philosopher will reflect on his experience of spiritual writing drawing on in his two published books The Healer’s Calling: A Spirituality for Physicians and Other Healthcare Professionals, and A Balm for Gilead: Meditations of Spirituality for the Healing Arts. Aasim Padela, a practicing Emergency Medicine physician and bioethics faculty member at the Medical College of Wisconsin, will reflect on his intentions of moving into the mode of spiritual writing, specifically memoir and short story, and how it relates to other kinds of academic writing and the incentives of academic medicine. Jon Tilburt, a practicing internist and bioethics researcher at Mayo Clinic, will reflect on a several year journey toward spiritual writing, sharing excerpts from a draft memoir, and experiences of recently enrolling in the spiritual writing track of an MFA program. Each will share excerpts from their work, reflect on the term “spiritual writing,” and its application to life in the practice of medicine. We will reserve 20-30 minutes for audience interaction at the end of the panel.