Month: December 2013

GW faculty Christina Puchalski, Benjamin Blatt, Mikhail Kogan, and Amy Butler wrote an article that appears in the latest issue of Academic Medicine examining this issue.  In this article, the authors describe the history of spirituality and health:

Spirituality has played a role in health care for centuries, but by the early 20th century, technological advances in diagnosis and treatment overshadowed he more human element of medicine. In response, a core group of medical academics and practitioners launched a movement to reclaim medicine’s spiritual roots, conceiving of spirituality as more than religion and ethics and defining it as each person’s search for meaning and purpose. 

 This article can be accessed as part of Himmelfarb Library's full-text collection.  Himmelfarb Library's collections also include additional materials for learning more about spirituality and healthcare including:

• Cadge, W. (2012). Paging God : religion in the halls of medicine / Wendy Cadge. Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2012.
• Puchalski, C. M., & Ferrell, B. (2010). Making health care whole : integrating spirituality into health care / Christina M. Puchalski, Betty Ferrell ; foreword by Rachel Naomi Remen. West Conshohocken, PA : Templeton Press, c2010.  Location: Book Stacks R726.8 .P83 2010
• Young, C., & Koopsen, C. (2011). Spirituality, health, and healing :An integrative approach (2nd ed.). Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett.

Image: Prime, J. (Year). Anahata -- Heart Chakra [Online image]. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjayaprime/9301443607/