I have spent the majority of my training and professional career in large public universities. In fact, from kindergarten through PhD and the first thirteen years of my academic career were in public institutions. So I received little training on faith integration and Christ-animated learning during those periods. However, when I arrived at Samford University eight years ago, I gained my first exposure to a Christ-centered University. Honestly, it was refreshing. With no formal training on Christ-animating teaching, I soon realized that Christian education was more than praying before class or occasionally quoting a bible verse.
As I investigated resources to help guide my thoughts and actions related to faith integration, I found that many resources focused on the undergraduate experience and the liberal arts. But what about the health sciences and even more specifically, graduate/professional education in the health sciences? As Perry Glanzer has pointed out in this forum, Christian graduate education far too often misses Christianity.1 Even in the works presented on this blog, the focus is on traditional graduate programs of study like the humanities and basic sciences, and there seems to be less attention to graduate professional education. It is unclear how Christian institutions are animating Christ and including the Christian worldview while training future healthcare professionals.
It seems that of all graduate and professional programs, healthcare programs would be the “lowest hanging fruit” for faith integration. Many students feel the call to serve others and some view healthcare as an entry point into Christian missions, whether at home or abroad. But with specialty accreditations and so many demands on their time, it has been my experience that even the most well-intentioned faculty can be led away from animating Christ in the classroom because of those distractions.
Yet, it is important to include faith in these programs because even the secular world recognizes the importance of spirituality in healthcare. Addressing a patient’s spiritual needs is part of holistic care—taking care of the mind, body, and spirit. It also helps the provider build a strong therapeutic alliance with the patient which improves outcomes2 and patient satisfaction.3 However, many providers do not address the spiritual needs of their patients and they often cite a lack of time or lack of training as to reasons why the faith needs of their patients are not being addressed. This is where graduates of programs from Christian universities should be thriving, and it is unclear if we are meeting this need.
Samford University has a long history of training health care professionals. Our Moffett and Sanders School of Nursing was established in 1922 and the McWhorter School of Pharmacy was founded in 1927. These two schools were combined with a new School of Health Professions and a School of Public Health thereby establishing the College of Health Sciences in 2013. Within the College, we have the Office for Faith and Health which aims to connect the College through a missional purpose to the broader community.
The Office for Faith and Health is deliberate to ensure that all students have opportunities to grow in their faith and understand how their profession of faith influences their professional vocation. While it is still a work in progress, the Office has established three primary goals for every student in a CHS program: 1. To hear a Gospel presentation; 2. To be challenged to consider how their faith informs their work; and 3. To understand how the faith of their patients/clients may impact the services being delivered.
If we are going to animate Christ in the classroom and the community, we believe that it is necessary to highlight who Christ is and why He came for all of our students, whether Christian or non-Christian. As Paul says in Romans, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” As ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor 5:20), the Christian faculty in Christian universities should never be ashamed to share the love of God, that which is Christ crucified. Students come to us from all different backgrounds and as they enter into a Christ-centered university, it seems reasonable for them to have an introduction as to why we find it so important.
Second, we aim to challenge students to consider how their profession of faith informs their work. This goal is one of the more challenging aspects for faculty that lack training in Christ-animating teaching to accomplish. We often get so discipline/content specific that we push the faith integration aside to focus on the current lecture’s details. It also takes some significant thought and creativity to consider how to animate Christ when teaching a clinical skill or basic science. However, that is the beauty of working in the Christian academy, taking the time to seek the Lord’s guidance on how to glorify His name in the classroom and laboratory.
Finally, and likely the easiest of the three goals we have for students, is to consider how different faith backgrounds may (or may not) impact the services being delivered. Teaching students to treat people as James says in the second chapter of his letter to “show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (v. 1, ESV). We aim to impress upon all of our students to be respectful of others, ask appropriate questions that find common ground, and always work for the best interest of their patients.
Faith integration is important in all aspects of the academy. Here at Samford University’s College of Health Sciences we have many faculty committed to glorifying God in the classroom, and it is our prayer that we can maintain our “heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23).
Footnotes
- Perry L. Glanzer, Christian Graduate Education Curricula Is Missing Christianity, (2023); Available from: https://christianscholars.com/christian-graduate-education-curricula-is-missing-christianity-can-we-at-least-try-to-add-it/.
- Holmes, M. B., Amanda Scott, James Camarinos, Lee Marinko and Steven George, “Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) and its Relationship to Patient-reported Outcomes in Painful Musculoskeletal Conditions,” Disability Rehabilitation, 45, no. 8 (2022): 1363-1369, doi: 10.1080/09638288.2022.2060337; Daniel J. Martin, John P. Garske and M. Katherine Davis, “Relation of the Therapeutic Alliance with Outcome and Other Variables: A Meta-analytic Review,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68, no.3 (2000): 438–450, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.68.3.438
- Joshua A. Williams, David Meltzer, Vineet Arora, Grace Chung and Farr A. Curlin. “Attention to Inpatients’ Religious and Spiritual Concerns: Predictors and Association with Patient Satisfaction.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 26 (2011): 1265-1271. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-011-1781-y
