The Religion & Culture Web Forum

 

Commentary

May 2005

About the Authors

Farr A. Curlin

Farr Curlin, M.D., is an Instructor in the Section of General Internal Medicine and the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, where he recently completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and a fellowship in clinical ethics. His research and teaching center on the intersection of religion and medicine, particularly the ways physicians' religious commitments shape their clinical engagements. He has completed the first national study of physicians' religious characteristics and their approaches to religion/spirituality and medicine, and he is currently studying the ways obstetrician-gynecologists navigate moral complexity in sexual and reproductive health care. Dr. Curlin also writes and teaches about the moral dimensions of medical practice, moral formation in medical education, and moral discourse within the doctor-patient relationship.

Daniel E. Hall

The Rev. Daniel E. Hall, M.D., M.Div., is an Episcopal priest and physician working at the interface between faith and medicine. He is currently completing a three-year John Templeton Foundation Fellowship in Religion and Medicine at Duke University before returning to the University of Pittsburgh to complete his residency in general surgery. He also serves as the assistant rector at the Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill, NC. Dr. Hall's research focuses on epistemology, moral philosophy, religious measurement, and the ways in which medical decision-making is influenced by religious and secular worldviews. He is developing a contextually-specific measure that uses observational techniques to sort respondents into one of several broad theological traditions. He writes about the philosophical challenges of applying the scientific method to the study of religion as well as the formation of moral character and discourse within the practice of medicine.

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