Ep04 | Bioethics and Faith in Medicine

One of the most difficult questions that patients can ask a healthcare provider is “why me?”. To complicate things further, this question is often posed with spiritual or religions undertones, i.e. “why is X, Y, Z god doing this to me?” While healthcare providers seek to treat the physical, at one point in their career they will be challenged to respond to questions of spiritual and religious doubt. This is no easy task, as studies have shown that spiritual care is an enigmatic area for healthcare providers with multiple barriers (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28249545?log$=activity;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24480531). John Hardt, Ph.D. is the Vice President for Mission Integration for Trinity Health Illinois and Associate Provost for Mission and Identity at Loyola University Chicago Health Sciences Division.  In his capacity as Vice President, he is responsible for the implementation, growth, and assessment of Trinity Health’s mission and ethics portfolio across the region. His grant research has focused on Ignatian spirituality and the formation of physicians and launched The Physicians’ Vocation Program, a four-year program for medical students at Loyola’s Stritch School of Medicine interested in exploring the concept of vocation in their own lives as future doctors. For more info on Dr. Hardt and this episode topic, visit medicuspodcast.com.