Medical
Education and Health Care in the Jesuit Tradition
5 Principles to Ponder!
Loyola
University Chicago is a Catholic and Jesuit University where
ethical and spiritual values are central. These values are
expressive of human wisdom, informed by the traditions of
American higher education, and animated by contemporary ideals
of the Society of Jesus.
Loyola’s
Stritch School of Medicine and its nationally-ranked Medical
Center are pluralistic and diverse, welcoming patients and
students, faculty and staff from many religious backgrounds
and ethnic traditions. Jesuit medical education has a
distinguished history spanning five centuries – beginning in
1592 at the Jesuit university of Pont-a-Mousson in France.
Loyola is one of 28 Jesuit universities in the United States,
one of four US Jesuit universities with a medical school.
Loyola
University and its Medical Center are part of an international
Jesuit network of service and learning.
Five “principles” of Jesuit education guide the
direction of Loyola’s Medical Center and Health System, as
well as the entire experience of teaching and learning at
Stritch School of Medicine.
The
first principle of Jesuit education and health care
is a passion for quality.
If the enterprise is worth doing at all, it is certainly worth
our very best. Thus we set demanding standards of learning
and patient care for students, faculty, and all medical
professionals. This commitment to excellence animates Loyola’s
Ignatian heritage, Catholic identity, and Jesuit mission.
A
second principle of Jesuit enterprises worldwide is
their commitment to lifelong
learning. Continuing education
for Loyola’s medical professionals, along with patient
education towards wellness and the prevention of illness, are
a key investment in Loyola’s future. We point with pride to
the ways that the entire Medical Center is involved in the
medical education of our undergraduate medical students at
Stritch, the residents who form the house staff of the
hospital, Loyola’s nursing and health care students, and our
graduate and Ph.D research students in the Graduate School.
This commitment to lifelong health care education locates
Loyola in the heart of the Ignatian tradition of finding God
in all the ways that knowledge and technology, research and
creative problem solving serve the world and its people. A
key element of learning in the Jesuit tradition is its
emphasis on the process of “reflection on experience.” Such
a review process provides focus for future action.
A
third principle of Jesuit education and so of
Loyola University is its preoccupation with questions of
ethics and values.
Care for the whole person, family support, personal integrity,
as well as the development of rich concepts of medical
professionalism, have always been promoted through the Jesuit
encounter with medicine. Recent developments in the high-tech
arena of medicine and the increasing commodification of health
care give this characteristic new urgency. The attention to
bioethical awareness at all levels of care demonstrates our
belief that ethics and values are intrinsic to every
health-care interaction and require commitment from every
health-care provider. Medical Ethics consultations for
patients and families are one mark of our attention at the
bedside to this principle, as is our attention to issues of
corporate responsibility and compliance. Going further,
Loyola’s promotion of fair and equitable employee
relationships marks its ethical commitment.
[Our
Jesuit tradition focuses attention on the great questions of
justice and fairness that confront our age: economic and
racial inequity, health care access in our own country,
especially for the poor; the global imbalance of economic
resources and opportunities; and poverty and oppression in
the Third World, to cite some examples. Jesuit institutions
feel compelled to address these questions through learning and
research, reflection and creative action. The Stritch School
of Medicine and Loyola’s Health System have become national
leaders in fostering a concept of medical professionalism
which calls the individual professional and the medical
profession itself to the promotion of justice.]
A
fourth principle of Jesuit education is the
importance it gives to religious
experience. Loyola University prides itself on
being a “home for all faiths.” The experience of God is vital
and must be integrated into the processes of healing and
learning so that everyone at the Medical Center has the
opportunity to grow in both knowledge and faith, in learning
and belief. As a Catholic university we try to open this
all-important horizon of faith experience for all our
patients, students, and co-workers -- whatever their religious
tradition may be. The spiritual service of the Medical
Center’s Pastoral Care Department and the religious activities
of Galvin Chapel provide an atmosphere for integrating
knowledge with faith, meaning and belief with daily life
experience. Indeed the myriad ways God works within our
various faith traditions help form and strengthen the Medical
Center in the fullest sense.
Finally
we come to the fifth principle of Jesuit
education: it is person-centered.
No matter how large or complex the institution, each
individual is important and is given as much personal
attention as humanly possible, both in and out of the
hospital, the classroom, and outpatient services. For so many Loyolans, this specific care for the individual becomes a way
of life that reflects the Magis
spirit of going the extra mile for another person. The
Medical Center’s Magis
program, its Service Excellence and Quality Improvement
initiatives provide meaningful, measurable ways to identify
this passion for quality.
A
hallmark of this person-centered focus of Jesuit education is
that is must lead to some specific practical action. For
Ignatius Loyola there is always the urgency to share what you
and I have received. Our learning and our life
experience are not for us simply to hoard for ourselves.
Rather, in a very open-handed and generous way, we are to use
our learning and leadership, our values and compassion in
service to a world so desperately in need of these special
qualities of life and hope. This is the heritage and
mission of health care and medical education in the Jesuit
tradition. For us at Loyola, this is what it means that
"we also treat the human spirit."
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