Prof Jim Malone speaks about the strong links between wellness and health on the one hand and spirituality on the other, writes Sylvia Thompson
Earlier this year, Prof Jim Malone, Emeritus Professor of Medical Physics at Trinity College Dublin and former medical physicist at St James's Hospital, Dublin took part in a series of lectures at the Milltown Institute, Dublin entitled Mind, Body, Spirit: Contemporary Approaches to Wellness and Healing.
In the series, medical doctors, psychologists and other orthodox health professionals explored current research and debate in theology, psychology and medical science that identifies the spiritual/psychic dimensions of illness.
"Some of the most prestigious centres in the United States are now studying the interactions between spirituality and health. For example, the Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School and Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina all have programmes," says Malone.
One set of studies is looking at the evidence connecting wellness and health with practices in religion and spirituality. "These controlled clinical studies find strong relationships between wellness, health and strategies for coping on the one hand and commitment to a religion, a spirituality or a practice such as meditation on the other," says Malone.
Other studies have found that praying for people at a distance without knowing who you are praying for does not have an influence on the outcome of a medical procedure such as an angioplasty or coronary artery bypass surgery.
However, praying with somebody who suffers from depression was found to have a positive effect both on the person praying and the recipient of the prayers.
Malone says that in Ireland, medical schools do not bring the issues surrounding individual spiritualities into the curriculum. He says "this is not surprising given the sometimes uncomfortable relationship between medicine and the churches here".
However, he says there is need for a wider debate in this country about what we expect from a health service. Quick to point out that he has no quibbles with health service managers and has the greatest respect for modern evidenced-based medicine, he says there is no social consensus on what a health system should provide.
"This is a more important debate than the management of the health system but the problem in Ireland is that there is a governance deficiency that has arisen from the abandonment of a religious ethos. We haven't thought out what we've left behind."
Malone argues that there is a mismatch of expectation between the patient and the healthcare system. "What people aspire to in life is wellness and wellbeing. When this is disturbed, they turn to the health service to get back on track but the healthcare system doesn't see itself as being there for that.
"It sees itself as treating disease with the most up- to-date technology without engaging with the person about what it feels like to be ill and how that has affected them. There is a huge issue around whether people are emotionally ready to leave the healthcare system and be on their own just because they are physically ready."
Malone believes the secularisation of medicine in Ireland has left a gap in the treatment model which complementary therapies often try to fill. The problem is that complementary therapies or mainstream medicine don't encourage people to learn practices such as meditation to help them feel better.
"This feeling element is undercultivated yet how you feel may determine whether you get well or not. Yet, if you were to request a budget for a new Cat scanner in a hospital or five meditation teachers to help people with pain control, you'd get the budget for the Cat scanner much more quickly."
So, how can we develop a new health paradigm that would help people recover from illness in a more holistic way?
"The integrated healthcare model [ eg where cancer support centres operate alongside orthodox cancer treatment centres] is useful and the introduction of art officers into hospitals is another valuable development. But, ultimately, we have to be extremely careful not to lose the caring dimension in an evidenced-based healthcare culture," he says.