Media inquiries: (804) 924-5679

MEDICAL SCHOOL STUDENTS TAUGHT TO REMEMBER SPIRITUALITY

Faculty at the University of Virginia School of Medicine are teaching medical students to be aware of patients' spiritual needs while caring for their physical ailments. The Fannie E. Rippel Foundation has made a gift of $100,000 over two years to the School of Medicine to support efforts to integrate education on spirituality into the medical curriculum.

U.Va.'s formal curriculum in spirituality and medicine began in 1998 when the School of Medicine received a $25,000 Templeton Foundation Curriculum Award from the National Institute for Healthcare Research. The Rippel Foundation grant will build on that. The goal is to integrate teaching about spirituality seamlessly into the medical school curriculum, said Marcia Day Childress, assistant professor of medical education and co-director of U.Va.'s Program of Humanities in Medicine, which oversees the spirituality and medicine curriculum.

Currently, U.Va. medical students take a course in the first year on the fundamentals of doctoring which includes discussions about spirituality. They are also offered elective courses in the fourth year on religion, spirituality, pastoral care, complementary medicine and end-of life care. Because medical students are working regularly with patients for the first time in their third year, instruction in spirituality and ethics, funded by the Rippel Foundation gift, is being added to the required third-year curriculum.

Beginning this fall, the entire third-year class will meet one day each quarter for Clinical Connection, a day of educational programs integrating different aspects of medicine and health care, including research, clinical care and social and cultural issues. Each Clinical Connection will tackle a complex clinical problem, such as pain management, infertility or neurological injury. During lunch, students will participate in small group discussions with specially trained faculty about the spiritual and ethical issues that arise in their daily work with patients. The Rippel Foundation's gift will underwrite this portion of the day.

Physicians are taught to assess, diagnose and treat patients with regard to what will most benefit the patient physically. However, we know that serious illness can be a spiritual crisis as much as a physical crisis. It is important that physicians are equipped to be caregivers in many senses of the word, including recognizing patients' spiritual needs, explained Dr. Margaret E. Mohrmann, associate professor of pediatrics, medical education and generalist medicine and co-director of U.Va.'s curriculum in spirituality and medicine.

In addition, as part of the Rippel gift, once each semester, the Medical Center Hour, the School of Medicine's weekly public forum on health-related issues, will be formally designated the Spirituality and Medicine Medical Center Hour. Invited scholars from around the country will speak on topics relating to spirituality and medicine.

The Fannie E. Rippel Foundation, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, provides funding to hospitals, organizations dedicated to the relief and care of aged women and institutions involved in treatment or research concerning heart disease or cancer.

July 6, 2000