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Pat Fosarelli, MD, DMin

JAMA. 2008;300(7):836-838.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

As a physician and pastoral theologian, and in my role as a teacher of medical, nursing, chaplaincy, and theology students, I am often asked (especially when speaking about the needs of seriously ill and dying patients), "Is spiritual care always an important part of medical care? If yes, who should assess the need for it?"

Religion is defined as "the service and worship of God or the supernatural; a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices"; and spirituality is defined as "the quality or state of being spiritual" (with spiritual meaning "of or relating to sacred matters").¹ In most individuals' estimation, religion tends to be associated with formal practices and rules that connect a person to the sacred. Because spirituality is not usually based on human-made laws of reason or logic, it is often described as the nonlogical or nonrational . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Can Medicine and Spirituality be Spoken of in the Same Context?

Author Affiliation: The Ecumenical Institute of Theology, Baltimore, Maryland.

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