Started in 1995, this award is given to outstanding undergraduate medical and osteopathic school programs that incorporate issues related to spirituality and medicine into their curriculum. This is a four-year, $50,000 award, paid out over the four-year award period. Public opinion surveys have shown that more and more patients are asking their physicians to address their beliefs, and how those beliefs affects their health, healthcare decisions, and treatment, particularly during chronic illness and end of life. Fourty-two top medical and osteopathic school courses have received this award since 1995 when the program was established. This popular award program has been key in broadening medical and osteopathic school curricula to include the critical dimension of spirituality as it relates to whole person care and compassionate care. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has included spirituality as a component of their Medical School Objectives Project Report III, a set of curriculum guidelines sent to all medical schools.

This three-year $30,000 residency award is given to outstanding psychiatric residency training programs that address spirituality and mental health. Patient spirituality and research concerning spirituality and mental health and wellbeing are recognized more and more in published studies, trade journal articles such as Psychiatric Times and Psychiatric Annals, and in presentations and sessions at national conferences such as the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The award program encourages the implementation of residency training programs that explore the relationship of spirituality to health and mental health in particular. Since 1997 when the program was founded, twenty-four residency programs have received this award.

Like the other two spirituality and medicine award programs, the submissions for the Primary Care Award are a part of a competitive process judged by independent reviewers from around the country. Since the programs inception in 2000, twenty primary care residency training programs have received this award. These recipients included both family practice and internal medicine programs. As with the Psychiatry Award, the Primary Care Award is a three-year $30,000 award.

For application instruction and program summaries of previous award-winning programs, visit the GWISH website (www.gwish.org). For additional information on all three awards programs, please contact Michele Zwolinski: Program Manager at 202-496-6411 or hcsmaz@gwumc.edu