Newswise — Dr. Puchalski is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Health Care Sciences at The George Washington University School of Medicine. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of The George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWish), a center that develops educational, clinical, and research programs for physicians and other healthcare professionals regarding the role of spirituality and health in medicine. Her goal is to help foster compassionate systems of care for patients and their families through the recognition that spirituality is essential to health.
Dr. Puchalski is a nationally and internationally known leader in the field of spirituality and health. She is a recognized pioneer in this field especially in curriculum development. Her curriculum in for medical schools has received honors and has been the model for innovative curricula throughout the country. Through her efforts, over 75% of medical schools now teach courses in spirituality and health. Dr. Puchalski also spearheaded efforts to develop an online graduate certificate program in Spirituality and Health offered at George Washington University, and is currently leading initiatives in interprofessional education in spiritutality and health as well as a national summit on Spiritual Care.
Dr. Puchalski has served as a principal investigator on numerous projects including an innovative study to integrate spirituality into healthcare settings called INSPIR. She works with interdisciplinary healthcare teams to develop cultures of compassion, where the focus is on spirituality as a foundation for compassionate practice. She also participated in a study that showed an association of spirituality and religious beliefs with depression in primary care residents. These studies led her to develop programs and retreats to support the spiritual lives of healthcare professionals to help them find greater meaning in their call to medicine and healthcare.
Other studies include an NIH"funded project to study spirituality in patients with HIV/AIDS which demonstrated a strong association between spirituality, the will-to-live, and quality of life in these patients; and educational research to evaluate the curricula in spirituality and health and the role of spirituality in palliative care. Dr. Puchalski developed a tool for spiritual history taking which is currently being evaluated in clinical settings.
Dr. Puchalski has a background as a basic scientist at NIH, thus bridging the art and science of medicine in her work. She is widely published in journals with work ranging from basic research in biochemistry to issues in ethics, culture and spirituality and healthcare. She has authored numerous chapters in books and edited and authored a book published by Oxford University Press, A Time for Listening and Caring: Spirituality and the Care of the Seriously Ill and Dying with a forward by His Holiness, The Dalai Lama.
Dr. Puchalski has chaired and co-chaired many conferences and participated in many consensus conferences on issues related to spirituality and health as well as palliative care. She co-leads an annual retreat for healthcare professionals and works with medical student education focused on how to support their call to a profession of service and compassion. Her work has been featured on numerous print and television media including Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Washington Times. She is the recipient of the AAMC and Pfizer's Award for The Medical Humanities Initiative and the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey's Faculty Humanism in Medicine Award. One of her articles for Spiritual Life, "Touching the Spirit: The Essence of Healing," received second prize in the National Catholic Press' annual award program, May 2000.
Dr. Puchalski completed a course in Spiritual Formation at the Shalem Institute in Washington, D.C. She is also a member of The Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites a contemplative order. Dr. Puchalski, first and foremost is a clinician. Part of her clinical practice in internal medicine and geriatrics is integrating patients' spiritual beliefs into their health care. With her expertise, she can knowledgeably address the sensitive medical issues surrounding palliative and end-of-life care and care of seriously ill patients. Dr. Puchalski's work in the field of spirituality and medicine encompasses the clinical, the academic, and the pastoral application of her research and insights.
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