Med Students Learn to Take Patients' "Spiritual History"

Reprinted from the January 2005 issue of Science & Theology News. Used with permission.

On Election Day, Lu Anne Dinglasan and Alex Diaz de Villalvilla joined in their fellow medical students gathering near the lobby of Yale New Haven Hospital. About 20 students dressed in short white coats paired off with mentors like Dr. Auguste Fortin to practice interviewing patients.

Fortin, whose thin, braided ponytail hangs midway down the back of his long white coat, greets Dinglasan and Villalvilla with a hug. He directs them to the elevator, which they ride to the ninth floor to meet the patients who have agreed to be part of their learning process.

Fortin's second-year Yale University medical school students are learning how to ask about their patients' spiritual lives as part of understanding the bigger picture of what brings people to the hospital.

"You're going to be asking some pretty personal questions in a minute, and what gives you the permission to do that is to connect with the patient on their terms," Fortin says quietly as health-care professionals whisk past the corner where he's giving the students a pep talk.

Villalvilla, 25, holds a packet of pages that outline important areas to cover when asking patients about their histories: from the impersonal, such as occupational exposure to chemicals and seat-belt use, to the emotional, such as spirituality and sexuality.

Though sexuality may not be the easiest thing to talk about, Fortin says, "I usually start with: `Who's at home with you?'

"If you say it in the same way as, `What do you do for work? Tell me about your schooling,' your sense of professional, respectful curiosity then translates into their willingness to take the question. If we do too much coughing and stammering and our voice trails off, the patient gets the idea that this is something embarrassing or shameful."

Dinglasan, 23, who has never asked real patients about their social background issues, looks up from her papers and asks, "Is there any certain order to these things?"

Continued on page 2: »