Spirit in Medicine

Spirit in Medicine is an excellent program to use as a first step for the new physician champion. You acquire group facilitation skills, learn group dynamics and learn what enlivens and deflates your physician colleagues. Physicians begin to trust you and your physician care initiative when they realize that they are getting something useful from your program. Spirit in Medicine was originally called Medicine in Search of Meaning and distills some of the concepts from a book by its creator (Bazan, B., Medicine in Search of Meaning, Caritas Communications, 1999). At St. Vincent Hospital I renamed the program because our local physicians resisted the “touchy-feely” name, and the rate of registrations improved. I modified a few other features for our local audience. I learned to facilitate the program from Dan Dwyar. I recommend participating in the program first. Next, lead parts of the program with a mentor before working independently.

Penetrating a Medical Staff

A steady offering of programs can slowly penetrate a medical staff. For example, in the first decade of work at St. Vincent Hospital, there was an average of 56 program registrations yearly. While the penetration may seem slow, 565 registrations were logged in ten years. Numbers do not really tell the story. Some physicians embrace these programs more enthusiastically than others. Some physicians attend several programs; the average number of programs attended by individual physicians was 1.63. I can report no measure of how any program influenced a physician because I used no psychometric testing or social assessments. Nevertheless, there is a halo effect within the workplace that radiates from spiritually mature physicians to other physicians, staff, patients and families.

The Value of Programs

Programs generally bring physicians into contact with you and with your retreat center or meeting place. Programs present an opportunity to build relationships and trust. Physicians have an opportunity to raise spiritual and work-related questions. All the while the medical staff becomes increasingly aware that someone cares about the wellbeing of the physicians. Programs allow you to teach leadership, conflict management, meeting facilitation, faith-sharing and how to maintain life balance. Programs create opportunities for dialogue. Dialogue reduces physicians’ isolation from one another and helps them realize that others have the same successes and frustrations. Programs can be used to restore joy in the practice of medicine and to embed the mission, vision, and values of the hospital.

Debriefing The Dying Man's Journey

This film speaks to the physician’s heart. Consequently there is usually a protracted silence after it is shown. The Chief Facilitator is wise to let the participants break the silence and avoid the temptation to make personal observations or ask guiding questions as in the preceding vignettes. Have tissues available. As this conversation winds down, you may choose to have the physician champion lead the closing segment of the program. Use a flip chart and ask the group as a whole to identify the barriers we experience in serving the spiritual needs of patients. Invite the participants to consider one at a time what barriers they see for families, nurses, support staff, other physicians and hospital administrators. Encourage them to write down one thing that they will put into action. A variation on the action step is to have them self address a postal card and write the action plan on it. Drop all postal cards in the mail between two and three weeks after the conference. Offer a closing prayer. Have participants complete the course evaluations.