Humanitarian Physicians’ Views on Spirituality

Abstract

The role of spirituality in medicine has become a focal point for an ongoing international debate and conversation. How do physicians who are recognized as outstanding humanitarians define the importance of spirituality, in their lives and in their professional work? Fourteen winners of the American Medical Association Foundation’s Excellence in Medicine: Pride in the Profession Award were interviewed to ascertain their views on spirituality. This article focuses on the doctors’ perceptions of how their spiritual underpinnings affect their lives and work in medicine. All of the doctors felt spirituality was important to their own experience and to the task of understanding their patients holistically. A significant theme tying together the physicians’ views was that each one acknowledged that spirituality was a part of their undergirding support system, both in their private lives and in their profession. All of the doctors lived by a creed of “doing good while doing well by the patient”—inside or outside of traditional spiritual terminology.