Toward a More Spiritual Approach to Medical Education

its inclusion in physician training programs, remains controversial.7 Spirituality is a relevant subject for those of us who are edu-cating medical students according to the biopsychosocial model. Some of the issues that are germane to the discussion of spirituality in a medical education context are: what ex-actly is “spirituality in medicine”? Why is it important? How does one integrate the knowledge of a given discipline or medical specialty with spirituality? What methods should be used to teach about spirituality effectively? And, perhaps most importantly, can one remain true to the science of one’s professional discipline and still believe that spirituality is rel-evant to medical practice? While we cannot address all of these important questions here, perhaps we can at least stim-ulate further thought about them. In order to do so, we will first briefly consider material from the realm of educational theory. The Purpose of Education: An Alternative Point of View Renewed emphasis on spirituality in medical education forces us to think about the purpose of education. Traditionally, when the purpose of education is discussed, emphasis is placed on preparing students to master a given profession so they can obtain a good job, compete in a global economy, and attain a good standard of living. It is this focus on education as a mean