Should doctors ask about their patients' religious or spiritual beliefs?

The Culture, Narrative, and Medicine course at Loyola University of Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine teaches cultural humility through literature and students' reflective writing.

Despite the possible conflict between evidence-based and cultural competence approaches to medical care, both embody the ideals of medical ethics.

Despite the possible conflict between evidence-based and cultural competence approaches to medical care, both embody the ideals of medical ethics.

The clinician/healer must both address the disease and seek to know how the medical condition is being experienced by the patient—what impact it has on his or her life and spirit.

A look through the eyes of an emergency room physician in Baghdad at a 5-year-old boy who died for his grandfather’s religious beliefs.

The range of opinions on the extent to which physicians should attend to their patients’ spiritual lives and the arguments that support those opinions.

The range of opinions on the extent to which physicians should attend to their patients’ spiritual lives and the arguments that support those opinions.

The range of opinions on the extent to which physicians should attend to their patients’ spiritual lives and the arguments that support those opinions.

When confidential medical information can prevent a serious harm to a third party, the patient’s prima facie right to confidentiality must be balanced against the physician’s prima facie obligation to prevent serious harm to that third party.