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UB representation on health-care board encouraging
By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor
President John B. Simpson told the Faculty Senate Executive Committee yesterday he is encouraged that one of the UB representatives on the board of the Western New York Healthcare System has been named an officer of that board.
David Dunn, vice president for health sciences, last week was named secretary-treasurer of the board that represents the consolidation of Kaleida Health and Erie County Medical Center. Simpson and Mary Gresham, dean of the Graduate School of Education, also serve as UB representatives to the board.
"These two groups in the context of this new board are working together collaboratively, constructively, working under the guidance of keeping the region's health-care system as good as possible," Simpson said. "The university is fully at the table in guiding the strategies and overseeing the ways in which this board will operate."
Having one of the board's four officers be a UB administrator, Simpson continued, is "a harbinger of a significant involvement of the University at Buffalo in thinking about health-care policy in Western New York and a recognition of the fact that you can't have a full health-care organization without the educational attributes of a university."
Robert D. Gioia, president of the John R. Oishei Foundation, was named chairman of the board, while James R. Kaskie, current president and chief executive officer of Kaleida Health, will serve as president and CEO of the proposed hospital system. Michael A. Young will continue as president and CEO of ECMC.
Simpson also reported that Carl T. Hayden, recently named chairman of the SUNY board of trustees, has invited him to be a member of the search committee for a new chancellor, "which I'm only too glad to do because this is a person that has to be my partner."
In other business, the FSEC heard a presentation about the spirituality in medicine courses that are a new part of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Science curriculum.
Developed by David M. Holmes, clinical assistant professor and associate vice chair for medical student education, the coursework seeks to teach doctors-to-be to address "the long-neglected domains of spirituality, cultural awareness and end-of-life issues in medical care," he told senators. Holmes also directs the Department of Family Medicine clerkship program.
Holmes, who was joined at the meeting by the spirituality program manager, Karen Devlin, said that "well over two-thirds" of U.S. medical schools have some type of spirituality curriculum. UB's four-year curriculum is being funded by the John Templeton Foundation at the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health at George Washington University.
A 2004 Gallup poll showed that 90 percent of American adults believe in God and 84 percent said religion is very or fairly important in their lives, Holmes said.
More and more, research is showing a link between spirituality and better quality of life and health, he said, noting that one study credits weekly church attendance to longer life spans. "If you go to church more than once a week, you live an average of seven years longer" Holmes said, citing the study. "In the African-American community, it's 14 years' difference. But somebody said, 'Yes, but you give up those seven years by being in church all the time. So I did the calculations, and I found out it's really about two years' time (spent in church), but you still get a net five years' worth of time."
Holmes said the UB spirituality curriculum is not separate, but rather is "interspersed in the courses that already exist."
Devlin agreed, noting that the curriculum incorporates some recognition of spirituality in each of a medical student's four years of study. For example, in the first year, several questions about a patient's spiritual leanings are included in the more than 50 questions asked while taking a patient history, and in the second year, a workshop on "delivering bad news" to patients gives students practice in "asking patients about their support systems and spiritual beliefs," she sad.
Students working as family medicine clerks in the third year are required to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting to understand the role that spirituality plays in recovering from addictions, and in that year or their fourth year, students may choose to take the elective "Faith, Medicine and End-of-Life Care." A total of 33 medical students have taken the class since the medical school began offering it in 2002.
Several faculty members asked Holmes and Devlin whether patients may decline to discuss their spirituality or religious preferences (they may), and whether the curriculum addresses the difference between traditional religions and spirituality, which encompasses such non-traditional religious practices as meditation.
"I think there is a very fine line in helping someone to express their spirituality and delving into what their religious practices are," Dorothy S. Tao, associate librarian in Lockwood Library, said.
Holmes said the curriculum "is not about pushing religion onto people.
"The problem is that religion is more easily identified in terms of practices and therefore it is easier to do research on," Holmes acknowledged. "It's easier to do research on their church attendance than their spiritual beliefs. But I think there is going to be more research on spirituality. But certainly the point of the curriculum is to ask about spiritual beliefs and whatever the patient says, that is their spiritual beliefs."
Henry J. Durand, director of the Center for Academic Development Services, said he has dealt with students with varying levels of mental illness "for whom spirituality or religion is almost, from my perspective, part of their illness.
"They are very religious in a mystical way, even to the extent where they are putting curses on someone," he said, and asked Holmes how that should is treated.
Holmes replied that the in the old DSM-IV, the diagnostics and systems manual for psychiatry, "faith and religion used to be listed as an illness."
"That is an issue and I do hear from students rotating in psychiatry that these issues get brought up. The foundation has suggested discussing these issues in psychiatry residence programs," Holmes said.
Finally, representatives from DEGW North American, LLC, in conjunction with its work as a consulting organization to the UB master planning process, made a presentation about the design of learning spaces and classrooms of the future.
Senators responded by identifying a host of space issues at the university, including the lack of enough study carrels in the UB libraries and other buildings; the need to add classrooms and re-design existing classrooms in order to accommodate more students while at the same time incorporating newer technology; and the need for a plan that dictates caring for any new spaces.
"We can build it, but it is highly doubtful we can keep it clean and in good repair," said Marilyn M. Kramer, head of cataloging for the UB Libraries Central Technical Services. "Any design needs to make provisions for the upkeep or be cognizant of the very low level of maintenance on campus."