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Losing God

Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

Correspondence: Richard T. Penson, MRCP, Instructor in Medicine, Hematology-Oncology, Cox 809, 100 Blossom Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114-2617, USA. Telephone: 617-726-5867; Fax: 617-724-3166; e-mail: rpenson{at}partners.org

Shortly before his death in 1995, Kenneth B. Schwartz, a cancer patient at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), founded the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center. The Schwartz Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and advancing compassionate health care delivery, which provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers, and sustenance to the healing process. The center sponsors the Schwartz Center Rounds, a monthly multidisciplinary forum where caregivers reflect on important psychosocial issues faced by patients, their families, and their caregivers, and gain insight and support from fellow staff members.

Nebulous language, distrust, and dogma confound spiritual aspects of cancer care. However, existential well being is an important determinant of quality of life: finding meaning and purpose make suffering more tolerable. The case presented is of a patient who experienced "losing God" as a Hodgkin's disease survivor with metastatic prostate cancer and severe coronary artery disease. His caregivers were able to provide the sense of community in which he could re-establish his faith. Health care providers do not have to be religious in order to help patients to deal with a spiritual crisis. The clinical skills of compassion need to be deployed to diagnose and respond to spiritual suffering. Acknowledging and addressing anger or guilt, common sources of suffering, are essential to adjustment. Simply being there for the patient and being open to their hurt can help resolve their spiritual crisis, a responsibility that is shared by the whole health care team.

Key Words. Physicians • Spiritual • Psychosocial • Faith • Conflict • Crisis

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