Dr. Curlin's career aim is to study the ways physicians' religious commitments shape clinical decisions. Growing interest in unconventional healing practices has been described as an expression of cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity which exposes the long-standing existence of medical pluralism. Physicians' religious commitments, as integral aspects of their culture or worldview, will influence patients' health to the extent they shape physicians' clinical recommendations. Prior studies have consistently found that physicians' religious commitments strongly predict their approaches to ethically controversial clinical practices, but we know little about the ways physicians' religious commitments shape their clinical practice in other domains. Dr. Curlin will build on ground-breaking preliminary studies which include the first comprehensive national study of physicians' religious characteristics and their approaches to the subject of spirituality in medicine. He will study the ways physicians' religious commitments shape their interpretations of which healing practices might be integrated as legitimate alternatives and which are to be recommended in particular clinical contexts. First he will conduct cognitive interviews with physicians from a range of religious affiliations, followed by a pilot survey of a national sample of physicians, to determine which among the many constructs for measuring religion are the most salient predictors of physicians' self-predicted clinical practices in contexts of relative medical uncertainty, psychological and spiritual suffering, the margins of life, and ethical complexity. Next, he will conduct a national survey which will examine the relationship between physicians' religious commitments, their beliefs about the legitimacy of different unconventional healing practices, and their willingness to integrate those practices into their own care of patients. Finally, he will conduct in-depth qualitative interviews with physicians from a range of religious affiliations to explore the ways physicians make sense of any connection between their own religious commitments and their attitudes toward different unconventional healing practices. This research will greatly increase knowledge regarding the ways that religious commitments influence the forms of """"""""integrated medicine"""""""" that physicians would be willing to offer to patients.
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