Session: Empirical Studies in Religion and Medicine
The current state of religious and spiritual training in bioethics education in the United States
Thursday, October 12, 2023
2:30 PM – 3:45 PM ET
Location: Heron (Fourth Floor)
Religion and spirituality (R/S) are integral to how many patients experience illness and loss as well as how they make medical decisions. Some of the most contentious and morally distressing clinical and bioethical issues are rooted in R/S considerations. Yet, these considerations are underrepresented aspects of bioethics education. We thus conducted a systematic literature review and survey-based study to understand the extent of that underrepresentation, how the conceptualizations and issues of R/S in biomedicine may have evolved, and what they look like now.
A systematic query of key terms in the medical literature from 2000 to 2022 yielded 56 unique and relevant articles for inclusion, review, and analysis. A total of 67 bioethics programs were surveyed: 33 (49.3%) responded to our inquiry. Only 11 (33.3%) offered courses in religion and spirituality, 3 (9.1%) were currently in the process developing a course, and 14 (57.6%) did not offer a relevant course. Nine syllabi were collected and analyzed. Common themes discussed in the evaluated curricula were the definitions of medicine, spirituality, and religion, the ethical sources of conflict between them, and the practical competencies needed to resolve these conflicts. As for trends from the literature review, earlier studies tended to focus more on the role of R/S in patient care and justifying R/S for curricular attention. Few publications or syllabi, however, self-critically examine the relation of R/S to biomedicine, the contents to be taught, or the rationale for those contents. We will discuss our analyses and reflections on these and other findings.
Cynthia Geppert – Alden March Bioethics Institute – Albany Medical College; Daniel Kim – Alden March Bioethics Institute – Albany Medical College