D.W. Fleenor is assistant professor, Department of Medical Education, and director of education, Center for Spirituality and Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6508-9910 .
H.G. Atkinson is affiliate clinical professor, Department of Medical Education and Academic Affairs, CUNY School of Medicine, New York, New York; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9066-6460 .
Acad Med. 2022 Feb 1;97(2):215-221. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004494.
Most Americans indicate they are religious and/or spiritual and wish to have their beliefs taken into account when engaging with health care providers, yet gaps in medical education and health care practice remain. To underscore the importance of spirituality as a significant social determinant of health, a team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York developed mandatory spirituality and health training for students integrated into all 4 years of the undergraduate medical education curriculum.
From 2014 to 2020, a small group of faculty took an innovative approach, launching the initiative and expanding the team by engaging interprofessional faculty and staff from across the institution. The team used an iterative process to integrate 4 distinct modules into 4 existing courses, spanning the 4 years of medical school.
The majority of students found that the spirituality and health curriculum was valuable to training and professional development. They appreciated the importance of patients' spiritual needs, valued learning about the role chaplains play in patient care and how to initiate a consult, and indicated they intended to integrate spiritual history taking in their patient care. With respect to process, 3 key factors-establishing an interprofessional team, working through an iterative process, and integrating the curriculum into existing courses-were critical to designing and implementing the modules.
The team aims to expand and improve the curriculum by linking learning to specific standardized competencies as well as developing more specific performance assessments to demonstrate achievement of competencies. Professional development efforts will be enhanced so faculty can better model and reinforce the integration of spirituality into health care practices and expand the curriculum on spirituality and health into graduate medical education.
大多数美国人表示他们具有宗教信仰和/或精神信仰，并希望在与医疗保健提供者互动时能够考虑到他们的信仰，但医学教育和医疗保健实践仍存在差距。为了强调精神信仰作为健康的重要社会决定因素的重要性，纽约西奈山伊坎医学院的一个团队为学生开发了强制性的精神信仰和健康培训，将其纳入本科医学教育课程的所有 4 年。
从 2014 年到 2020 年，一小群教师采取了一种创新的方法，通过吸引来自该机构各个专业的教职员工，启动了这一倡议并扩大了团队。该团队使用迭代过程将 4 个不同的模块整合到 4 个现有的课程中，涵盖了医学院的 4 年。
大多数学生认为精神信仰和健康课程对培训和专业发展很有价值。他们重视患者精神需求的重要性，重视学习牧师在患者护理中的作用以及如何发起咨询，并表示他们打算将精神病史纳入患者护理。关于过程，建立跨专业团队、通过迭代过程工作以及将课程整合到现有课程中这 3 个关键因素对于设计和实施模块至关重要。
该团队旨在通过将学习与特定的标准化能力联系起来，并开发更具体的绩效评估来展示能力的实现，从而扩展和改进课程。专业发展工作将得到加强，以便教师能够更好地将精神信仰融入医疗保健实践，并将精神信仰和健康课程扩展到研究生医学教育。
