Faith is the missing ingredient

Editor - Guiding patients to health takes more than technological wizardry, wonder drugs, and pleasantly decorated surroundings.¹ For patients, faith can restore hope, improve morale² and can also enable the miraculous.

For doctors and medical students, the core values of "caring, integrity, competence, confidentiality, and a high standard of ethics" in medicine are derived from Judeo-Christian principles.³ Many well known doctors in the past have also gained the inspiration and strength from their belief in a caring God.⁴

As medical students, we will inevitably experience points of crisis, in our patients' lives and in our own. I am a Christian, and have a firm belief in a loving God, Jesus Christ, and that he died on the cross for us.⁵ During my time as a medical student this belief has become stronger.

We should always be mindful of spiritual needs and not allow the importance of faith to be ignored or overlooked in the sea of technological advances and busy work schedules.

Ai-shi Lim, fourth year medical student, St George's Hospital Medical School, London SW17 ORE
Email: sgms584@sghms.ac.uk


studentBMJ 2000;08:217-258 July ISSN 0966-6494

1. Hudson T. Measuring the results of faith. Hospitals & Health networks 1996;70:22-4, 26-8. (September.)
2. Anderson JM, Anderson LJ, Felsenthal G. Pastoral needs and support within an inpatients rehabilitation unit. Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 1993;74:574-8. (June.)
3. Wilkinson PA. Are based on Christian ethics [letter]. BMJ 1994; 309:1658. (December.)
4. Palmer B. Cure for Life. Arlington, TX: Summit Publishing Ltd, 1996.
5. 1 Corinthians 15.3-7 (NIV).