Buddhist center draws focus to patients' diverse beliefs

Physicians need to be sensitive to the faith-held beliefs of their patients, especially to how these precepts may influence a patient's understanding of illness.

By Vida Foubister, AMNews staff. March 5, 2001.

Hinsdale, Ill. -- Now that the Chicago area is home to an estimated 150,000 Buddhists, health care professionals here must learn to recognize and respond appropriately to their spiritual needs.

"The interest in Buddhism and practices of Buddhism have become so widespread that Buddhism will eventually change the health care system," predicted Jan Chozen Bays, MD, a Zen teacher and pediatrician in Portland, Ore., at a conference held last month at the Buddhadharma Meditation Center in Hinsdale.

But Buddhism is only one of several world religions gaining prominence in Chicago and across the United States that the Park Ridge Center, which sponsored the conference, plans to explore in its recently launched World Religions and Health Care initiative. Hinduism and Islam are two others.

The center has a long history of studying diversity among Christian and Jewish groups, and is simply "moving into the natural new diversity," explained research associate Paul D. Numrich, PhD.

One of the questions the center's scholars will be asking is, how do the beliefs and practices of these religions impact health care? In addition to research, the center also will work to educate people about this diversity and develop leaders who can bridge the gap between mainstream medicine and these different religious communities.

Dr. Numrich and others at the Park Ridge Center, which studies the intersection of faith, health and ethics, are among an increasing number of scholars inside and outside the medical profession who believe more attention should be paid to the diversity of patients' spiritual needs. [...]