Navigating the Murky Waters of Hope, Fear, and Spiritual Suffering

Marterre, Buddy; Clayville, Kristel

doi:10.1016/j.suc.2019.06.013

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 130 publications

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“…for theists, and meaninglessness and hopelessness for non-theists and theists alike. 12 Following the spiritual screening, surgeons can explore, by saying things like “ tell me more ” and take a spiritual history. Spiritual screening and exploration is a skill that every surgeon should employ, from their own toolbox.…”

Section: Spirituality Theological Anthropology and Spiritual Reframingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spirituality in Surgery-A Double-Edged Scalpel

Marterre

Hinshaw

Shinall

2023

The American Surgeon™

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Investigating, respecting, and working with surgical patients’ spiritualities is as critical a skill as the proficient technical performance of operations. When spirituality is ignored, sacred patient values remain undiscovered, authentic trust is hindered, and healthy shared decision-making processes suffer. These are instances when the other edge of the spiritual scalpel comes back to cut us as surgeons, but more importantly, upon withdrawal of spiritual understanding, it deeply injures our patients and their families. Spiritual screening, spiritual history taking, engaged, active listening, and big-picture prognostic truth-telling while promoting hope are critical skills for efficacious whole-person surgical care and the healing of our surgical patients’ suffering—in all aspects of their humanity. These skills require surgeon introspection and vulnerability, however, as well as regular practice, and can be quite difficult; frequently leading to understandable discomfort, particularly when the surgeon does not share the patient’s spiritual orientation or religious commitments. This literature-based essay addresses all of these issues, providing surgeons with a variety of new spiritual tools for their holistic armamentarium to promote healing, rather than further injury.

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Section: Spirituality Theological Anthropology and Spiritual Reframingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spirituality in Surgery-A Double-Edged Scalpel

Marterre

Hinshaw

Shinall

2023

The American Surgeon™

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“…12,13 Spiritual screening and the concept of realistic hope are gaining more traction when caring for surgical patients as well. 14 The importance of palliative care in surgical training has been gaining recognition by multiple national surgical organizations. The topic was introduced into the surgical residency curriculum and is currently being updated to one day become the longitudinal theme it needs to be.…”

Section: Spirituality and Surgical Palliative Care For Residentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing Back the Art of Medicine to Surgery

Pellizzeri

Soltani

2023

The American Surgeon™

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In a relatively short period of time, the need for incorporating primary surgical palliative care into surgical education and residency curriculum has become apparent. This provides an opportunity for growth for surgeons and surgical residents and a method to explore spirituality and wholeness of the patient. It also has the potential for increasing the sense of fulfillment that residents and surgeons alike can drive from caring for complex surgical patients. Given the significant constraints of today’s graduate medical education world, there remain challenges that must be overcome when designing curricula and incorporating surgical palliative care into practice and resident education. The Surgical Palliative Care Society brings hope for the future of this specialty and encourages multidisciplinary discussions about the practice of, education in, and research on surgical palliative care.

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“…Every healthcare provider should be able to perform spiritual screening (14,74) given how important spirituality, hope and meaning-making is to patients with serious illness (65,66). Spirituality is a topic that routinely makes surgeons uncomfortable (75)(76)(77), and this area is an unmet need from surgical patients' perspectives. Spiritual screening provides an opportunity for surgeons to take a first step toward deeper inquiry into the beliefs, practices, and deep sources of meaning of their patients (66,77).…”

Section: An Unmet Needmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Spirituality is a topic that routinely makes surgeons uncomfortable (75)(76)(77), and this area is an unmet need from surgical patients' perspectives. Spiritual screening provides an opportunity for surgeons to take a first step toward deeper inquiry into the beliefs, practices, and deep sources of meaning of their patients (66,77). Studies have found that single-question screens for religious/spiritual distress are inadequate, and that combining two questions: one of meaning/joy and a second of self-described spiritual struggle or suffering (such as feeling disconnected from God or other deep sources of meaning/purpose), is superior (78).…”

Section: An Unmet Needmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The management of physical pain and other sources of suffering, such as nausea, constipation, dyspnea, agitation associated with delirium, psychological, social, and spiritual pain (66,77), are key to the surgeon's initial evaluation and management of any patient facing serious illness (115,117). Surgeons are more likely to engage expert PC services for assistance with EOL care than they are for symptom management (58), and yet, perhaps due to the influence of the opioid epidemic (118), medical students' witnessing patients' experience suggests that surgical patients' perioperative pain is poorly controlled, with "disturbingly graphic" descriptions that "expose suffering ranging from generalized discomfort to anguish and excruciating pain" (119).…”

Section: Pain and Symptom Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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