There is a paucity of research relating to how palliative caregivers conceptualize, identify, and provide for spiritual and existential domains of care. Focus groups comprising experienced palliative care providers participated in three semistructured 2-2.5 hour interviews, which were transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis. Eight themes were revealed: conceptualization of spirituality; ...

BACKGROUND Poetry plays an age-old role in the art of healing. Although medicine today seems distant from the world of poetic expression, there are surprising commonalities between the two. OBJECTIVES In this essay we reflect on three aspects of healing that are fostered by poetry. OBSERVATIONS Practicing medicine with too many facts and not enough poetry leads to dissatisfaction, disappoin...

Benjamin Rush, MD (1745-1813), was not only the most well known physician in 18th-century America, he was also a patriot, philosopher, author, lecturer, fervent evangelist, politician, and dedicated social reformer. He was unshakable in his convictions, as well as self-righteous, caustic, satirical, humorless, and polemical. Unquestionably brilliant, he graduated from what later became Princeto...

A n Internet search using the words healing and transformation leads one to many alternative and complementary therapy sites. Similarly, when examining scientific databases relatively little comes up. Has the focus on basic science, randomized clinical trials, and numbers needed to treat jettisoned the less measurable aspects of clinical practice, such as the patient-healer relationship, into t...

Whilst many factors influence its craft, psychiatry is ultimately considered a profession. Any medical practitioner abides by a social contract as both a healer and professional (ABIM Foundation, ACP-ASIM Foundation, & EFIM, 2002). Physicians have reaffirmed the concept of medicine as a profession, in the face of commercialization of healthcare, globalization and advances in biotechnology. Crue...