The Internal Morality of Medicine in the Contexts of Implicit Religion and Spirituality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.2005.8.1.7Keywords:
religion and health, holistic approaches, spirituality and health, death & dying, HQ1973Abstract
The internal morality of medicine is the moral framework that entails the duties and virtues of physicians in their curing, healing and caring for the sick. It is claimed in this essay that when medicine is practiced as a secular vocation, as opposed to that of a business or a job, it meets the criteria of implicit religion and spirituality. Specifically, it is argued that spirituality is evident, relevant and important as an ingredient of the internal morality of medicine when the latter is practiced as a vocation. Spirituality may manifest in the committed professional activities and attitudes of physicians on behalf of the health of patients and of the larger community, and particularly in the process of discerning what is the best interest of patients in the context of a holistic healing approach to their clinical condition. It may also lessen the likelihood of erroneous overvaluation of patients’ self-determination, as if it were equivalent to dignity, while facilitating the consideration of patients’ communal connectedness. Therefore spirituality in medicine may enhance the quality of health care, and thereby benefit both the patients and those who affect, and who are affected by, their lives, health, dying and death.References
Arras, John D. (2001) ‘A Method in Search of a Purpose: The Internal Morality of Medicine’, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 26(6):643-62.
Bailey, Edward (1983) ‘The Implicit Religion of Contemporary Society: An Orientation and Plea for its Study’, Religion 13:69-83.
Brody, Howard and Franklin G. Miller (1998) ‘The Internal Morality of Medicine: Explication and Application to Managed Care’, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 23: 384-410.
Fawcett, Jan (2000) ‘Where Does Spirituality Come From?’, Psychiatric Annals 30(8): 511.
Fletcher, Joseph (1954) Morals and Medicine, Princeton: University Press.
Gollnick, James (2003) ‘Is Implicit Religion Spirituality in Disguise?’, Implicit Religion 6(2/3): 146-60.
Hastings Center (1996) An International Project of the Hastings Center, The Goals of Medicine: Setting New Priorities. Hastings Center Report 26(6): S1-S28.
Koenig, Harold G. (1999) The Healing Power of Faith: Science Explores Medicine’s Last Great Frontier, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Koenig Harold G. (2002) Spirituality in Patient Care: Why, How, When and What, Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.
Koenig, Harold G., M. E. McCullough and D. B. Larson (2001) Handbook of Religion and Health, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth (1969) On Death and Dying, New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Ladd, John (1983) ‘Internal Morality of Medicine: An Essential Dimension of the Patient-Physician Relationship’, in Earl Shelp (ed.) The Clinical Encounter, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, and Boston MA: D. Reidel, pp. 209-32.
Lo, Bernard, Timothy Quill and James Tulsky (1999) ‘Discussing Palliative Care With Patients’, Annals of Internal Medicine 130: 744-49.
Matthews, Dale A. (1998) The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing Power of Prayer, Harmondsworth, England: Viking, Penguin Books Ltd.
McSherry, Elizabeth (1983) ‘The Scientific Basis of Whole Person Medicine’, Journal of American Scientific Affiliation 35(4): 217-24.
McSherry, Elizabeth, Daniel Kratz and William A. Nelson (1986) Pastoral Care Departments: More Necessary in the DRG Era?, Health Care Management Review 11(1): 47-59.
Mohrmann, Margaret E. (1995) Medicine As Ministry: Reflections on Suffering, Ethics, and Hope, Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press.
Peabody, Francis (1928) The Care of the Patient, Cambridge: University Press.
Pellegrino, Edmund (1979) ‘Toward a Reconstruction of Medical Morality: The Primacy of the Act of Profession and the Fact of Illness’, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 4: 32-56.
Pellegrino Edmund D., and David C. Thomasma (1996) The Christian Virtues in Medical Practice, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Pellegrino Edmund D., (1999) ‘The Goal and Ends of Medicine: How Are They to be Defined?’, in Mark J. Hanson and Daniel Callahan (eds.) The Goals of Medicine: The Forgotten Issue in Health Care Reform, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 55-68.
Percival, Thomas (1803) Medical Ethics; or a Code of Institutes and Precepts, Adapted to the Professional Conduct of Physicians and Surgeons, Manchester, England: S. Russell.
Powell, Andrew (2002) ‘Mental Health and Spirituality’, Spirituality and Psychiatry Special Interest Group of The Royal College of Psychiatrists Newsletter, No. 10. http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/college/sig/spirit/publications/nl10_index.htm
Quill, Timothy E. (1991) ‘Death and Dignity—A Case of Individualized Decision Making’, The New England Journal of Medicine 324: 691-94.
Scheurich, Neil (2003) ‘Reconsidering Spirituality and Medicine’, Academic Medicine 78: 356-60.
Sims, Andrew (2003) ‘Mysterious Ways: Spirituality and British Psychiatry in the 20th Century’, Spirituality and Psychiatry Special Interest Group of The Royal College of Psychiatrists Newsletter No. 13. http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/college/sig/spirit/publications/nl13_index.htm
Solyom, Antal E. (2003a) ‘Ethics of Social Responsibility: The Foundation of Partnership, Promotion and Prevention’, World Federation for Mental Health Biennial Congress, Melbourne, Australia, February 21–26.
Solyom, Antal E. (2003b) ‘Prevention of Physician-Assisted Suicide: Ethical Considerations’, XXII World Congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, Stockholm, Sweden, September 10–14.
Sulmasy, Daniel P. (1997) The Healer’s Calling: A Spirituality for Physicians and Other Health Care Professionals, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Tanaquil, Taubes (1998) ‘ “Healthy Avenues of the Mind”: Psychological Theory Building and the Influence of Religion During the Era of Moral Treatment’, American Journal of Psychiatry 155: 1001-1008.
