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The SPIRITual History
H. E. Woodall, MD
Anderson Area Medical Center Anderson, SC
Arch Fam Med. 1996;5(8):439.
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Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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I was very pleased to see the article by Dr Todd Maugans on taking "The SPIRITual History."1 Including the spiritual history of our patients in our database is yet another example of the importance of holistic thinking and placing each individual in context when dealing with illnesses and overall health. In our research as family physicians, we must emphasize as a discipline what we have learned about our patients. They are spiritual, social members of families, not merely individuals who need biochemical adjustments.
In our Anderson, SC, residency program, we have developed an elective curriculum for fourth-year medical students that addresses questions of religion and medicine. The SPIRITual history will be quite useful to us in teaching these students. More curriculum development must be done. We need a curriculum dealing with the spiritual aspect of patient's lives much like the Substance Abuse Education for Family Physicians guideline2 that
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
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