Spiritual care generalists and spec

Spiritual care generalists and specialists All members of the health care team are responsible for addressing the spiritual issues of patients that arise within the bio-psycho-social-spiritual framework [97]. Even though all health care professionals should provide some spiritual care, most are not trained to do so in-depth [98,99]. While patients do not typically expect to receive in-depth, specialized spiritual care from their physicians or nurses, they do express a strong preference for some basic spiritual care, including listening, communicating and expressing compassion [100]. Studies consistently demonstrate that a high percentage of patients wish that their health care providers would ask about or discuss spirituality and/or religion [101]. Within the practice of medicine, there are both generalists and specialists. As Rev. George Handzo, BCC, states, ‘‘Every physician is taught something about cardiology, certainly including how to assess and at least preliminarily diagnose cardiac issues. The general internist will also be able to treat some number of these issues, especially in their less severe forms, without referring to a cardiologist.