UF receives spirituality and medicine curriculum grant

With the support of a recent grant from a nonprofit organization, the University of Florida College of Medicine is expanding its curriculum on the role of spirituality in medicine.

UF was one of six schools to receive the John Templeton Spirituality and Medicine Curricular Award, which is designed to expand the scope of medical education by encouraging courses that address spirituality, cultural awareness and end-of-life issues. The four-year grant begins this March and totals $25,000.

The grant was awarded by the National Institute for Healthcare Research’s incentive program for medical schools in the United States and Canada that are interested in developing or improving existing spirituality and medicine curricular courses.

UF is using the grant to build on to existing educational curriculum in the three target areas. Through a required ethics course and an interdisciplinary generalist clerkship, the College of Medicine has been addressing the areas of spirituality, end-of-life issues and cultural awareness. Starting with the fall semester more attention will be given to these areas. These topics will be introduced in existing required first-year courses, with required second- and third- year courses building onto the previous year’s course content. UF will continue to offer a number of fourth-year electives that address these three areas.

“The public wants physicians who are more aware of these things, and the most recent statewide push has been for more end-of-life care, more respect for patient wishes and more dialogue with patients about death,” said principal investigator Dr. Robert Hatch, an associate professor in the department of community health and family medicine. “This is a way of giving students some understanding of these issues and tools they can use when interacting with patients.”

Dr. John Graham-Pole, a professor in the department of pediatrics, Dr. Allen Neims, former dean of the UF College of Medicine and a professor in the departments of pediatrics and pharmacology and therapeutics, Louis Ritz, an associate professor in the department of neuroscience, and James Wagner, who holds the Grace H. Osborn professorship in medical ethics and humanities, will serve as co-principal investigators for the grant. Four of the investigators are members of the campuswide UF Spirituality and Health Group, which promotes scholarly discussions, scientific research and educational activities.

The grant is named for its funding source, the John Templeton Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of links between spirituality, science and medicine. The National Institute for Healthcare Research is a nonprofit educational and research organization committed to exploring these same issues.