Spirituality and Palliative Medicine

The prospect of life’s ending raises acute questions about identity, value and meaning. In a medical context, palliative care physicians have become increasingly conscious of the issues of spirituality raised by patients facing death, as well as the lack of training given in UK medical schools to deal with them. The Spirituality and Palliative Medicine Project is an interdisciplinary enterprise comprising several members of the Department of Theology and Religion and a group of palliative care consultants based in the region, together with colleagues from the School of Health, the Department of Anthropology, and the Centre for the Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine. Several research areas have been identified, including the impact of a physician’s own spirituality and values on the doctor-patient relationship, the relation between psychological profile and ability to ‘cope’ at the end of life, the idea of ‘unbearable suffering’, the meaning of spirituality for the non-religious, etc. A programme of regional, national and international seminars and conferences is envisaged which would contribute to and disseminate the research.

For further information about the Spirituality and Palliative Medicine project, please contact Dr Robert Song.