For more information contact:
Email: hcsbkl@gwumc.edu
Phone: (202) 994-6220

Spirituality and Health Care Graduate Certificate Program

The Spirituality and Health Care Graduate Certificate Program is designed to provide practicing health care professionals with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to provide high-quality health care that incorporates spirituality as part of excellent holistic care grounded in a biopsychosocial-spiritual model.                

Message from GWish founder and director, Christina Puchalski, MD:

Spirituality and Health is a relatively new field that has emerged over the last 20 years. More than 80% of U.S. medical schools have courses in spirituality, and many hospitals have spirituality initiatives. Spirituality is a factor that contributes to health. It can be understood as an essential part of each human being—that part which seeks meaning and purpose in the midst of suffering, illness, stress, and life transitions. Grounded in the biopsychosocial-spiritual model of care, spiritual beliefs and issues can impact patients’ illness and health care decision-making, as well as influence diagnosis, treatment, and coping.

This certificate program was developed by The George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWish) and funded by the John Templeton Foundation. The program provides health care professionals with the theoretical, ethical, empirical, and practical tools necessary to integrate spirituality into their clinical practices, foster leadership in spirituality and health, and impact the health care environment to create more compassionate systems of care.

Christina M. Puchalski, MD
Founder and Director, GWish