What does it mean for doctors, nurses and health care providers to be truly present? How can stories told by both patients and practitioners lead to deeper understanding, healing and wholeness?
Faculty, staff, students and members of the community attended the 7th Annual Spiritual Life and Wholeness Conference at Loma Linda University Health. The conference, held Jan. 16-17, encouraged participants to explore developments in the teaching and practice of whole person care.
Loma Linda University Health has embraced wholeness from its beginning in 1905. As they spoke about topics including “Mind, body, medicine and the human spirit” and “Reflection, resilience and humanism: bringing our whole person to whole person care,” the invited speakers mentioned various aspects of wholeness that have been researched and advocated by Loma Linda University Health.
Presenters included keynote speaker Thomas Hutchinson, MB, BCh, BAO, director, McGill University programs in whole person care and editor of the book “Whole Person Care;” Gregory Fricchione, MD, director of the psychiatry and medicine divisions and of the international psychiatry division, Massachusetts General Hospital; and Hedy S. Wald, PhD, clinical associate professor of family medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University.
During the two-day event, 20 additional speakers from numerous entities throughout Loma Linda University Health also shared developments on campus in the area of whole person care. The conference was sponsored by the Center for Spiritual Life and Wholeness, with internationally known speakers to explore practical ways of integrating spirituality in the health care setting.
“This year’s conference,” says Carla Gober-Park, PhD, MS, MPH, director, Center for Spiritual Life and Wholeness, “examined whole person care from a wholistic, 360-degree perspective, highlighting and actively strategizing whole person care across the Loma Linda University Health campus.”
Gober-Park highlighted research she is leading at the center in relation to the newly developed CLEAR (connect, listen, explore, acknowledge and respond) whole person care model and the data from the SOUL underlying life spiritual history that is currently integrated into the Loma Linda University Health electronic medical record. “SOUL” is the acronym for sources of strength, outlook on religion and beliefs, underlying life events and links to care.
According to Kris Lozano, center manager, the Spiritual Life and Wholeness Conference began in 2008 and was originally called the Spiritual Care Workshop.
“From the beginning,” she says, “the goal of the conference was to mentor primarily Loma Linda University Health employees, faculty and students for the purposes of carrying out whole person care on the campus, but it is extended to others. Through the years many community members have joined us because of their interest in topics such as spirituality, forgiveness, witness in health care and whole person care.
“Through this conference people come together to celebrate the work they have been doing all year,” she says. “They are also equipped for further work and encouraged to move what they have done into publication. Finally, it is a time to be inspired.”