key: cord-0775945-n2na2w9v authors: Adeli, Seyed‐Hasan; Heidari, Morteza; Heidari, Akram title: Spirituality in medical education and COVID‐19 date: 2021-01-19 journal: Clin Teach DOI: 10.1111/tct.13331 sha: 4d3b1adc9b412f8fa768fb5bdd4a47ba41c291a7 doc_id: 775945 cord_uid: n2na2w9v nan Alongside growing awareness about the spiritual dimension of health, there has been an ever-increasing tendency to incorporate spirituality into medical education and research in some contexts. This is part of an overarching movement from the biomedical approach toward a holistic medical education 1 in which spirituality is expected to take a more important role. In addition to rising publications in the field of spirituality, many medical schools and institutions have included spirituality in their programs. 2 As a medical university in Iran, influenced by the rich history of Persian medicine and with regard to the special religious and cultural background of the people, Qom University of Medical Sciences has established, for the first time in the country, a research center for spiritual health and a school of health and religion. As researchers and faculty members of the Spiritual Health Research Centre and the School of Health and Religion, we have tried to incorporate spirituality in medical education. Our initiative on spirituality and health is directed toward developing spiritual competencies of health care providers. 3 Spirituality has been defined as "that most human of experiences seeking to transcend self and finding the meaning and purpose of life through connection with others, nature, and/or a Supreme Being. 4 " To address this aspect of being human, medical students need to develop spiritual competencies and our plan has been directed toward developing these competencies. Some examples of spiritual competencies are noted in box 1. In addition to providing reading materials and content, the hidden curriculum may be regarded as a means of developing spiritual competencies 5 because the behaviors of instructors, especially in clinical contexts, are more influential than their words. Thus, it is necessary to equip educators with what is needed to have the right effect on the spiritual competencies of the learners. Since we believe that to enrich medical education and practice with spirituality requires a high level of spiritual competence, we have adopted a set of actions for the empowerment of faculty members and students. The empowerment process is fulfilled through both degree and non-degree programs. For students, we do not offer a course on spirituality. Rather, we have adopted alternative solutions and try to convey the spiritual concepts implicitly or explicitly within other courses such as medical ethics and health. Integrating spiritual issues in curricula as a longitudinal theme to increase and expand the duration of the students' exposure to these topics is another method we have adopted as it has been shown to be effective in ethics courses. 6 Furthermore, spiritual aspects of patient cases are discussed in morning reports and clinical rounds. Both undergraduate medical students and residents in different specialties receive an introductory session on spirituality in medicine and health. Integrating spiritual issues in curricula as a longitudinal theme to increase and expand the duration of the students' exposure to these topics is another method https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8366-0033 Morteza Heidari https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8993-8123 Akram Heidari https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0538-2293 Bringing holism into mainstream biomedical education Medical school curricula in spirituality and medicine Cultural, ethical, and spiritual competencies of health care providers responding to a catastrophic event Spirituality: concept analysis and model development Religion, spirituality, and the hidden curriculum: medical student and faculty reflections A longitudinal ethics curriculum for medical students and generalist residents at the Medical College of Georgia Spirituality in medical education and COVID-19