In a small, windowless room, a husband and wife are praying. After removing their shoes, Salem and Khawla kneel on elaborately embroidered rugs, heads down and quietly murmuring. In front of them is a plastic sign that says “Qibla,” indicating the direction of prayer for Muslims and the part of the room that pertains to their faith.
The tiny room seems almost out of place, five stories removed from the first-floor tumult of Duke Hospital North. The plain wood paneling, decrepit piano and large, weathered Bible provide a striking contrast to the Gothic architecture of Duke’s better-known chapel at the center of West Campus. Outside, doctors and nurses rush by with charts and stretchers, but inside, silence reigns.
Salem and Khawla—who declined to offer their last name—have traveled far from their home in the United Arab Emirates. They are here to seek treatment for their child’s illness—Pompe’s disease, a glycogen storage deficiency that is often fatal in children. Duke is a pioneer in the enzyme replacement therapy used as treatment for the disease.
For the couple, prayer is not simply a means of making their desires known, but a way of life; as Muslims, the two pray five times daily. Khalwa emphasized that prayer was a constant in their lives and not just a comfort in times of illness.
“All life, all things, are from God,” Khawla said. “All sick, all good thing or not good thing is like a test. We are all the time praying for Allah—give me health or not health, that’s for God.”
Research: Religion’s Impact on Health
Like Salem and Khawla, many are reluctant to consider a direct relationship between their spiritual and physical health. But at the Duke Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, which is co-directed by Dr. Harold Koenig and Dr. Keith Meador, researchers have found religion’s impact to be fairly significant.
“We’ve found that people who are more religiously involved, especially in their religious communities, tend to have better health,” Koenig said. “They have less depression, greater well-being, cope better with stress, have lower blood pressure and stronger immune systems, and they live longer.”
Koenig said these differences could be attributed to having a more positive world view and a greater desire to help others. “We think that the greatest effect of religion is that it motivates people to give of themselves and to contribute to others’ lives,” he said.
Meador, however, suggests that some caution be taken in interpreting such results. As co-author of Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and the Distortion of Christianity, he suggests the need for balance.
“I think [health care] gets misguided if its dominated too much by either side; that’s why Duke is in such a wonderful setting,” Meador said.
Outreach: Religion and Healthcare in the Community
Certainly, the proximity of the School of Medicine and Divinity School has provided ample opportunity for both collaboration and service to those in need.
Shared projects on campus include Caring Communities, which supports the development of health ministries in the Carolinas, and the Health and Nursing Ministry, which offers a joint master’s degree program from the Divinity School and the School of Nursing.
This educational partnership has even extended beyond U.S. borders. Dr. David Walmer, an associate clinical professor within Duke’s medical school, was crucial to the founding of Family Health Ministries, a non-profit organization based in Haiti’s southern peninsula. Walmer has been working in Haiti for the past 12 years and currently takes students with him as part of a course he teaches. As part of the class, medical, nursing and divinity school students, as well as some undergraduates, spend a week in Haiti participating in the organization’s activities.
“It basically is a course that looks at healing in the developing world from a medical and a theological standpoint,” Walmer said.
Family Health Ministries is rare in that all projects are instituted by the Haitians. “It is strictly an organization of developing relations,” Walmer said. “All of the implementation of the projects is done by the people who live in these communities.”
Lifestyle: Everday Faith
While it may appear that contributors to the organization are giving in both the spiritual and financial sense, Walmer explained that the relationship was mutually beneficial.
“When you talk about poverty, what I’ve recognized is that people in these countries are suffering from a lack of resources—there’s a physical poverty. What Americans have realized is that there’s a spiritual poverty in the United States,” he said. “Americans end up helping provide resources to the Haitians, but the Haitians teach Americans what it really means to live your life as a Christian. They teach Americans how to incorporate their faith into their daily lives.”
Shared initiatives between theology and medicine may occur as close as North Carolina or as far as Haiti, but the impact upon local lifestyles remains regardless of location. “[The intersection of] religion and medicine is not just an abstract area of theoretical consideration,” Meador said. “It has the ability to transform how we all live together.”
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