Throughout the polarizing debates in the United States over health-care reform, the arguments have generally focused on how to provide medical treatment to everyone. Little attention has been given to the very nature of contemporary biomedicine—its assumptions, methods, and goals—as being included in what needs to change. And so, The Soul of Medicine: Spiritual Perspectives and Clinical Practice, edited by John R. Peteet, M.D., and Michael N. D’Ambra, M.D., both of Harvard Medical School, is a welcome examination of what is missing from the larger discussion on health care today: spirituality.
This is a thoughtful, scholarly book, written especially for students embarking on medical careers, as well as for those already practicing medicine. It explores a wider definition of health. Citing the World Health Organization’s standard, health is seen as “not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” but “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being,” and that includes “spiritual well-being” (p. 28). The underlying proposition of this collection of essays is not whether spirituality fits into health care today, but how. The Soul of Medicine reflects not just on the importance of the patient’s religious background—but the physician’s as well.
While a secular point of view is included, the rest of the contributors come from a wide spectrum of faiths: Judaism, mainstream Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, eclectic spirituality, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Science. Nearly all are practicing physicians, and they share candidly from their personal experiences how the religious teachings and spiritual worldview they each hold benefit their individual practice of health care—both as a support to their spiritually minded patients and, what is particularly striking, as a restorative resource for themselves in their own lives and careers.
