IHRS in the News: Physicians Avoid Conversations About Religion in the ICU

An editorial co-authored by Dr. Michael Balboni and Dr. Tracy Balboni, co-directors of the Initiative on Health, Religion, and Spirituality at Harvard University, was recently quoted in a TIME magazine article entitled "Physicians Avoid Conversations About Religion in the ICU."

The article focuses on a research study by Ernecoff et al published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study found that although religion and spirituality is fairly or very important to the majority (77.6%) of critically ill patients' surrogate decision-makers included in the study, health care professionals only discussed these topics in goals-of-care conversations less than 20% of the time. The study also showed that health care providers were the ones to bring up religion and spirituality 5.6% of the time, and the most common response when surrogates initiated the discussion was to change the subject.

Dr. Tracy Balboni and Dr. Michael Balboni co-authored a corresponding editorial also published in JAMA Internal Medicine, and are quoted in the TIME magazine article as saying, "Although we health care professionals struggle to connect spirituality and medicine as evidenced by the many and mounting articles that refute or explicate their connection, our patients and families typically do not struggle. For most, thoughts of what is most sacred, of what transcends the finitude of human life, come flooding in the moment the physician shares the news of the serious illness or the telephone call comes urging the listener to the bedside of a critically ill loved one.”

Read the TIME magazine article here: "Physicians Avoid Conversations About Religion in the ICU"

Read the JAMA Internal Medicine research study here: "Health Care Professionals’ Responses to Religious/Spiritual Statements by Surrogate Decision Makers..."

Read the corresponding editorial from JAMA Internal Medicine here: "Religion, Spirituality, and the Intensive Care Unit: The Sound of Silence"