c. 1999 Religion News Service
NEW HAVEN, Conn. _ Ann Ameling, a professor at Yale Nursing School, can recite a litany of professional reasons for starting a spirituality and health program in conjunction with Yale Divinity School.
But the true reason for her dedication to the project lies outside the professional realm and originates in one of the darkest, most personal episodes of her life _ her battle with breast cancer four years ago.”Even though I was getting state-of-the-art care,”she said,”it was really clear to me that there was something enormous lacking in the care I was getting.” That enormous gap was the lack of spirituality in her treatment, a gap she filled herself through meditation and other techniques.”It really wasn’t something I could talk to my physicians about,”she said, adding that the hospital staff thought she was”wacko”for listening to a cassette of personal affirmations during her radiation treatments.
Now healthy and back in the classroom, Ameling wants to prevent other patients from having to embark on that road alone. The program she developed will begin in September and is a unique pairing of medical and divinity school training.
The optional program consists of three classes, tutorials on integrating the material into a clinical setting and occasional speakers. Ameling has taught two of the classes at the nursing school for the last couple of years _”Spirituality and Health”and”Alternate and Complementary Therapies”_ while the third,”Living With Dying,”will debut in the coming academic year. She will teach or co-teach the three classes as part of the program on spirituality that is available to students from Yale’s nursing, medical and divinity schools.
Among the program’s goals is teaching students how to make a”spiritual assessment”of their patients’ needs alongside the physical assessments that are part and parcel of the health-care provider’s job. The nurse or doctor can then help their patients fulfill their spiritual needs, whether by consulting with the appropriate chaplain or integrating spirituality _ such as meditation _ into patients’ care.”Spiritual care is a very important component of health care, and it’s not just the prerogative of ministers and priests and rabbis,”said the Rev. Margaret Lewis, director of religious ministries at Yale-New Haven Hospital and co-teacher of two of the three nursing school classes.”The goal is the health of the whole person and the use of all the resources.” The program is funded by grants from the Teagle Foundation, a private New York-based organization that focuses on higher education, and the John Templeton Foundation, a Radnor, Pa.-based group that has poured much money recently into spirituality and health programs.
John M. Templeton Jr., president of the Templeton Foundation, said he was moved to help fund the Yale program in part because of its emphasis on teaching doctors and nurses to make spiritual assessments of their patients.
And he hopes that teaching health-care providers about the growing number of research papers showing the benefits of caring for patients’ spiritual needs will make it more likely that doctors and nurses will include chaplains in their strategies for dealing with their patients.”A program like Yale’s shows it is possible to integrate nurses and chaplains and physicians in meeting those needs,”Templeton said.
The”Spirituality and Health”class introduces students to the healing traditions in various religions and features rabbis, priests, ministers and imams as guest speakers.”One of the main richnesses of these classes is the attempt to be both multifaith and multidisciplinary,”said Lewis, an adjunct professor at both the divinity and nursing schools.”We’re looking at healing practices from a whole variety of different lenses.” In formulating the class, Ameling butted heads with the nursing school’s Curriculum Committee, which objected to an assignment requiring students to write a spiritual autobiography. Ameling said the committee told her the assignment was”too private.” But Ameling said,”I think it’s the last significant taboo. We feel comfortable talking with people about their sexuality but not their spirituality.” In the end, the assignment was permitted.
The alternate therapies class seeks to connect commonly practiced alternative and Eastern medical techniques _ such as acupuncture or Reiki, a form of therapy using touch _ to their religious roots.”They’ve been divorced from their spiritual base,”Ameling said.
The class looks at prayer and herbal remedies as well.
The”Living With Dying Class”will not only examine the final moments of life but will teach students to deal spiritually with patients whose illnesses could allow them to live many years before their bodies eventually succumb.
Divinity school students who participate in the program will be required to work part-time in a hospital setting. Ameling and Lewis will work with interested nursing students on integrating the material into their work.
When many health-care professionals learn about spirituality, Lewis said, they feel”as if they’re adding in a piece that’s been missing from their practice.” Meg Povilonis, a May graduate of Yale Nursing School and a former student of Ameling’s, said she has seen the effects of health-care providers’ failure to take a patient’s spiritual needs into account.
A Native American patient being treated for psychiatric problems, for instance, wished to perform some of his religious rituals, but”none of the rituals that his family believed in and he believed in were taken into account,”said Povilonis. His spiritual needs, rather, were considered part of his psychosis.
She said the ideal care would involve”some synthesis of what our culture believes will help someone heal and what that patient believes will help with healing.” Povilonis, who wrote her thesis on spirituality and health care, said Ameling’s”Spirituality and Health”class made her more comfortable using the”language of spirituality”in speaking with patients, and she believes the program should be mandatory for all nursing students.
She also thinks learning about patients’ spirituality is a necessary part of meeting their medical needs.”You can’t look at these kinds of things without looking at how they find meaning in their lives,”she said.
AMB END KRESS
