Spirituality and the physician executive - Reconciling the Inner Self with the Business of Health Care

Physician Executive, March-April, 2000 by Leland R. Kaiser

KEY CONCEPTS

* The Role of Spirituality in Business

* New Humanistic Capitalism

* The Promise of the New Century

* Spirituality Versus Religion

* Working on a Higher Plane

* The Merger of Science and Spirituality

FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE the beginning of life on this planet, a self-designing life form has evolved. We are that life form. We must take advantage of the special opportunities self-reflective consciousness brings us. Our challenge is to develop an intelligent and loving design capability that respects and protects all forms of life. It could take until the end of the century to achieve our redesign efforts, but it need not if we awaken to our collective role as the guardians of the health and well being of our planet.

We are destined to become a designer planet-- to take our rightful place in the intergalactic community. With the combined power of outer space technology and inner space spirituality, we will begin the colonization of our solar system and commence our journey to the distant planets. To attain this pioneering capability, we need to act now upon our best visions and highest aspirations.

What is spirituality?

The "s" word (spirituality) can now be spoken with comfort in our health care organizations. International conferences on the role of spirituality in business are common. Spirituality is emerging as a favorite topic in management seminars. Spirituality is often confused with religion. They are very different things. Religion refers to a specific body of beliefs, a tradition, and a prescribed set of practices. Spirituality refers to a broad set of principles that transcend all religions. For instance, the golden rule is spiritual, yet every religion recognizes it as a valid base for interpersonal action.

The most important job of the physician executive is to raise the consciousness of her organization, thereby enabling it to find allies and work with them in a process of community reinvention. Spirituality is best defined as a relationship between yourself and something larger, such as the good of your patient or the welfare of the community. Spirituality means being in right relationship to all that is. It is a stance of harmlessness toward all living beings and an understanding of their mutual interdependence.

You may be spiritual and not very religious, religious and not very spiritual, neither religious nor spiritual, or both religious and spiritual. The best position for the physician executive is to honor everyone's spirituality and respect their religious preferences.

Spiritual principles should form the foundation for all health care institutions, whether they are public or parochial. It is not appropriate to teach religion in non-church related organizations. It is always appropriate to promote spirituality. Indeed, many large American corporations are recognizing the role of spirituality in creating a new kind of capitalism that escapes greed and shares abundance, repairs our damaged natural environment, and promotes social justice among developing countries. In the new century, both not-for-profit and investor-owned health care facilities will demonstrate the socially redemptive mission of this new humanistic capitalism, which focuses upon making every member of the community a consumer, a citizen, and a voter.

Spirituality and the physician executive

The physician executive should be a primary proponent of spirituality in his organization. He can do this in the following ways:

* Model the power of spirituality in his own life. Nothing is as convincing as a life well lived where spirituality is integrated with professional competence to produce outstanding organizational outcomes.

* Integrate spiritual methodologies into clinical practice wherever possible. This can take many forms from praying for patients to supporting programs for teaching healing touch to health care professionals.

* Foster an integrative approach to patient care by combining allopathic medicine with the best of the alternative and complementary modalities.

* Encourage the organization to tithe its profits for unmet community health needs.

* Support collaborative efforts to improve the health of the community. A healthier community initiative is often the best way to do this,

* Create a healing environment. This bmay take the form of a water fountain in the lobby, extensive use of natural light, aquariums, healing music, meditation gardens, walking paths, and reflecting pools.

* Provide optional coursework for employees interested in spiritual development, personal empowerment, and lifework planning. A formal mentoring program is a good way to extend and further personalize the coursework.

* Offer executive coaching to all top-level managers interested in improving their interpersonal and organizational effectiveness.

* Create a healing space that offers massage, biofeedback, and relaxation tapes. Rather than take a coffee break, a stressed staff member can retreat to a healing space for rest and revitalization.

* Explore the power of intuition in patient diagnosis and treatment. In the next few years medical intuitives will take their rightful places as members of the hospital or clinic staff.