On December 3, Larry Dossey, MD, will lecture, “Spirituality, Healing, and Modern Medicine: Current Developments and Looking to the Future,” at 4 p.m. in Volker Hall, Lecture Room E, 1670 University Boulevard.
The conference is sponsored by the UAB School of Medicine Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, UAB Libraries Historical Collections and the UAB School of Nursing.
Dossey is a former internal medicine physician and former chief of staff at Medical City Dallas Hospital. He received his medical degree from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and trained in internal medicine at Parkland and Veteran’s Administration hospitals in Dallas.
Dossey has lectured at medical schools and hospitals in the United States and abroad. In 1988, he delivered the annual Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, India, the only physician ever invited to do so.
Dossey is the former co-chair of the Panel on Mind/Body Interventions, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health. He is the author of 12 books dealing with consciousness, spirituality and healing, including the New York Times bestseller “Healing Words: The Power Of Prayer And The Practice Of Medicine” and most recently “One Mind : How Our Mind Is Part Of. Greater awareness and why it matters. He is editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing. Dossey lectures around the world and lives in Santa Fe with his wife, Barbara, a nurse consultant and also the author of several award-winning books.
Dossey’s lecture will address one of the most profound social movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries: the move toward integrative medicine, often called alternative or complementary medicine. A key element underpinning this movement is a new respect for consciousness and spirituality – the way emotions, attitudes, will and sense of the “spiritual” shape our lives and influence our health and longevity. These factors significantly influence the way medicine is taught and practiced in our culture. For example, in 1993, only three of the nation’s 125 medical schools offered courses exploring the role of spiritual practices in health; currently, around 90 have them.
In 1998, the Joint Commission on Healthcare Facilities Accreditation established spiritual assessment standards, which healthcare facilities must comply with to be accredited. In 1999, the Association of American Medical Colleges set learning goals for all American medical students, including “the ability to obtain a spiritual history as well as the understanding that the spiritual dimension of people’s lives is a path to providing compassionate care.”
Over the past two decades, more than 1,200 studies have been conducted suggesting that people who follow a spiritual path – no matter which one – live significantly longer and have a lower incidence of all major diseases than people who do not. do not follow such a path. path. Around 200 studies suggest that distant healing, in the form of prayers or healing intentions, can have a vital impact on health outcomes.
Dossey has played a central role in these developments for more than two decades. It will show why these events are critically important for everyone, patients and healthcare professionals. Dossey will also discuss emerging evidence that we can not only insert information into the world, such as in remote healing and prayer, but also acquire information from the world and use it to make wise health choices.
| Dossey’s lecture will address one of the most profound social movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries: the move toward integrative medicine, often called alternative or complementary medicine. |
A key question is how spirituality and health come together in a specific person’s life, because not everyone who follows a spiritual path enjoys a longer, healthier life. The onset of illness can lead to feelings of spiritual failure or actual punishment. Dr. Dossey will discuss ways we can understand these difficult events and how we can avoid what’s called “new age guilt” when things go wrong with our health.
A new view of consciousness emerges from these developments – a non-local picture in which consciousness is seen as immortal and eternal. This image brings hope to the morbid views of consciousness in current neuroscience, in which the annihilation of consciousness is assumed at the moment of death. The emerging vision affirms ancient wisdom: the mind as omnipresent, immortal, eternal, infinite, and, in a certain dimension, one with all other minds.
The School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The University of Alabama School of Medicine designates this educational activity for up to 1 AMA PRA Category 1™ credit(s). Physicians should only claim credit in proportion to the extent of their participation in the activity.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is an equal opportunity and affirmative action institution..
