Wholeness of healing: an innovative Student-Selected Component introducing United Kingdom medical students to the spiritual dimension in healthcare.

Objective: This Student Selected Component (SSC) was designed to equip United Kingdom (UK) medical students to engage in whole-person care. The aim was to explore students' reactions to experiences provided, and consider potential benefits for future clinical practice.

Methods: The SSC was delivered in the workplace. Active learning was encouraged through facilitated discussion with and observation of clinicians, the palliative team, counselling services, hospital chaplaincy and healing ministries; sharing of medical histories by patients; and training in therapeutic communication. Assessment involved reflective journals, literature appraisal, and role-play simulation of the doctor-patient consultation. Module impact was evaluated by analysis of student coursework and a questionnaire.

Results: Students agreed that the content was stimulating, relevant, and enjoyable and that learning outcomes were achieved. They reported greater awareness of the benefit of clinicians engaging in care of the "whole person" rather than "the disease." Contributions of other professions to the healing process were acknowledged, and students felt better equipped for discussion of spiritual issues with patients. Many identified examples of activities which could be incorporated into core teaching to benefit all medical students.

Conclusion: The SSC provided relevant active learning opportunities for medical students to receive training in a whole-person approach to patient care.

Re-Stor(y)ing social change

New understandings arise as we encounter the emergent integration of both rational and emotional, physical and spiritual, masculine and feminine through imagination, myth, and storytelling. This expanded space fosters an iterative spiraling process whereby new personal and collective futures emerge from transformative possibilities. Contemplating love and the situatedness of our being creates a space for seeing differently, more inclusively. Thought Woman tells a story of encounters arising from contemplation, framing an emancipatory path toward wholeness and unity, being shaped through becoming, recognizing the interrelated web of life wherein humankind can flourish. Flourishing represents the central focus of the critical accounting project.