In May of 2012, an interesting panel will share its members’ thoughts with a carefully-selected audience, one that has been invited to take part in a special program That program will have a biomedical theme. The theme for that planned event is meant to bring together a community of medical and religious professionals. Every one of those experts will address this topic: Spirituality and Medicine-Toward an Integrative Approach.

This effort demonstrates an understanding of how to provide a patient and his or her family with total comfort. That requires more than an assurance of future wellness. It demands the ability to aid a family’s retention of spiritual wellness.

In order to achieve that end, several members of the biomedical field will come together with leaders from different faith groups. For example, there will be physicians sitting next to chaplains on the announced panel. Other members of that seated group will be those who have pursued a career in social work or psychology.

The program’s design is meant to encourage a good deal of give and take. The panelists do not claim to have all the answers. In fact, each of them welcomes input from the audience, especially when it includes mention of some new ideas.

It is hoped that those new ideas will motivate an investigation into those techniques that should prove most useful. Such techniques ought to aid the development of a string of best practices. That should help to guarantee the attainment of wellness for a larger number of patients and their families.

No doubt a good deal of time will be devoted to conditions that force a family to watch the slow death of a loved one. Cancer is one such condition, as is Alzheimer’s. Chaplains and other religious leaders understand how difficult it can be for families to watch a loved one move steadily closer to the day of his or her death.

Sometimes, that circumstance forces the medical professionals to ask certain questions, such as whether or not to put a patient on life support. The planned conference is meant to prepare families for making that type of hard decision. It should also help them to deal with any grief, following the passing of a friend or relative.

The panelists realize that there is no one way to display one’s grief. Some make a very visual display of their feelings, others grieve in quiet. The correct approach is the one that helps to heal the grieving individual.

It might be something that helps to restore the meaning in his or her life. It might be a method for releasing pent-up energy. Either would be acceptable. Either should be healthful and helpful.

Too often those men and women who toil in a biomedical lab give little thought to the thinking of the patients who have the disorder that the researchers are studying. For that reason, those researchers can benefit from contact with religious leaders. In that way, each can see more clearly the obvious significance of the findings made by any group of dedicated investigators.