Medical-Spirituality Conference to examine spiritual, emotional needs of young patients

The 2017 Medical-Spirituality Conference, “Pediatric Health and Healing: Exploring the Spiritual and Emotional Needs of Our Young Patients,” will be held Thursday, April 27, 8:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., at the Sinclair Conference Center, 301 W. Fourth Street in Dayton.

The conference is for practicing physicians and others in the medical and religious community.

The keynote presenters are the Rev. Cheryl V. Minor and Chaplain Ryan Campbell.

Minor is the director of the Center for the Theology of Childhood, the academic and publishing arm of the Godly Play Foundation. For the past 19 years, she has served a parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, the Parish of All Saints’ Church in Belmont. Minor is also a Godly Play trainer and has been deeply involved in designing the Godly Play Foundation’s training models.

Campbell is a Roman Catholic ecclesial lay minister. He is on staff at Children’s Medical Center Dallas as program manager for the Center for the Spirituality of Children. Campbell also ministers to patients, families and staff in the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. His interests in ministry include children’s spirituality, palliative care, grief and bereavement care.

The event will support the Healer’s Art Fund at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. The Healer’s Art Fund was created to help address an emerging crisis in health care: the growing loss of meaning and commitment experienced by physicians nationwide under the stresses of today’s health care system. Through the Healer’s Art Fund, the Boonshoft School of Medicine helps both students and practicing physicians develop the capacity to find lifelong meaning in the medical profession. The medical school educates tomorrow’s physicians through its Healer’s Art Course and sustains today’s physicians through its annual Medical-Spirituality Conference.

If participants register by March 27, the conference cost is $150 for physicians; $75 for nurses, counselors, social workers and other health professions; $75 for general participants; $65 for seniors; $35 for students; $35 for residents; and free for Boonshoft School of Medicine students.

To register for the conference, go to medicine.wright.edu/med-spirit.

For more information, contact Nicki Crellin at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at nicki.crellin@wright.edu or 937-245-7634.

Information about continuing medical education credits for this activity is available at medicine.wright.edu/med-spirit.

The conference is sponsored by the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton Children’s Hospital, Hospice of Dayton, Premier Health, Miami Valley Hospital Medical Staff, Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association and The Montgomery County Medical Society.

The Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine is a community-based medical school affiliated with seven major teaching hospitals in the Dayton area. The medical school educates the next generation of physicians by providing medical education for more than 444 medical students and 443 residents and fellows in 13 specialty areas and 10 subspecialties. Its research enterprise encompasses centers in the basic sciences, epidemiology, public health and community outreach programs. More than 1,500 of the medical school’s 3,229 alumni remain in medical practice in Ohio.