Todd R. Risley: A Man Who Didn't like Counting Angels

He dwelt no place, and gathered to himself neither wealth nor followers. Warm and eager was his spirit opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles and succors; but only those that knew him well glimpsed the flame that was within. Merry he could be, and kindly to the young and simple; and yet quick at times to sharp speech and the rebuking of folly; and thus far and wide he was beloved among all those that were not themselves proud. Mostly, he would at times work wonders among them, loving especially the beauty of the fire; and yet such marvels he wrought mostly for mirth and delight, and desired not that any should hold him in awe or take his counsels out of fear. (A very liberal adaptation describing Gandalf in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings)     

Opposites Do Not Attract: Social Status and Behavioral-Style Concordances and Discordances Among Children and the Peers Who Like or Dislike Them

Homophily, a term used to describe the tendency to associate with similar others, serves as a basis for attraction among children. The converse may also be true. Dissimilarity appears to contribute to dislike. In one of the only published studies to examine homophily and its converse, D. W. Nangle, C. A. Erdley, and J. A. Gold (1996) found that children were liked by peers who were similar to them in social status and behavioral style and disliked by peers who were dissimilar to them in social status and behavioral style. Examining gender influences, we were only able to partially replicate their findings in the present study. That is, evidence of homophily was found only for girls. In contrast, dissimilarity contributed to dislike for both genders, but was especially evident for boys. With respect to age, prosocial behavior appeared to have a more positive valence among younger girls. whereas aggressive behavior appeared to have a more negative valence among older boys. Attempts to reconcile these findings with those of the Nangle et al. (1996) investigation and the implications for understanding peer processes, gender influences, and behavior problems are discussed.     

Doctors Who Integrate Spirituality and CAM in the Clinic: The Puerto Rican Case

This article describes Puerto Rican physicians’ personal and clinical utilization of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM), its effects, and use as they identified as either Spiritist, spiritual or religious. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 74 doctors in Puerto Rico. Major themes and relationships among them were charted using the qualitative data analysis program MAXQDA, open coding and grounded theory. Thirty-one doctors spoke of CAM and its use as related to their spiritual or religious perspectives. Spiritual or Spiritist doctors were more inclined than religious doctors to utilize CAM. Seeking closer relationships with patients was related to a spiritually oriented goal of healing (as distinct from curing) as a reason to recommend CAM.     

The Man Who Could Not Cry and the Psychoanalyst Who Could: Mutual Healing in the Maternal Transference/Countertransference

This is a clinical/theoretical study of mutual healing in the maternal transference/countertransference. Therapist and patient began their work when each was in extreme mourning. I detail sensory, affective transactions between them that proved transformative. I deem these basic to the healing that was unusually rapid. It broke through the patient's dissociation, and the therapist's sorrow. I note that the treatment modalities were similar to those essential to mother/infant bonding. I connect the treatment's transformative effects with those discovered through infant research and studies with the functioning magnetic resonance imagery test (fMRI). All three of these modes of interpersonal study-psychotherapy, infant, and fMRI research-exhibit mind/body imprinting of the mother/infant deeply connected experience.     

Faith-Based Sex Education Programs: What They Look Like and Who Uses Them

The purpose of this study was to explore the kinds of sex education programs for youth available in mainline churches. This research project sought to identify the kinds of programs developed, the ages of the youth involved, the reasons for implementing the programs, the goals of the programs, the topics covered, and the perceived youth response to these programs as identified by youth ministers and leaders. The sample included 92 churches/synagogues with memberships over 300 that were within a 25-mile radius of our small, urban area in southeast Michigan. Findings from this study lay the groundwork for exploring whether these programs have an impact on adolescents’ sexual behaviors.     

The Cult of Doctors: Harvey Cushing and the Religious Culture of Modern Medicine

Harvey Cushing had an extraordinary life in medicine as an innovative brain surgeon and a pivotal figure in the biomedical revolutions taking place at the turn of the twentieth century. Expressions of sincere devotion from Cushing’s patients often rely on distinctly religious language to capture the meaning and impact of the doctor in their lives. If these devotional sentiments from former patients were the only traces of religious meaning associated with the life of Cushing, they could easily be discounted as an all-too-common, and some might say particularly confused, infusion of personal spirituality into the realm of medicine and health. But these expressions of adoration and veneration may be only the proverbial tip of a deep, wide, and largely unseen religious iceberg. Cushing’s extraordinary accomplishments did inspire both patients and the public in this era, but it is proposed that his life is embedded in a much larger and more significant religious movement driving the cultural success and power of biomedical science: the cult of doctors. Gary Laderman, Ph.D., is a cultural historian who has written two books on death in America, Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford UP, 2003) and The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799–1883 (Yale UP, 1996). His PhD is in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is working on a new book project that explores the intersections of religion and medicine in the twentieth century. This is the first article from that project.     

谁是上帝:医生还是病人?

医院提出"病人就是上帝"的口号并没有让广大患者得到真实的利益,新时期提高医疗质量的关键环节在于培养医生的医学人文精神,而医学人文精神的培养则需要医生树立起把自己看作上帝的高尚信念.     

A Bad Disease, a Fatal Cure: Why Sterilization is Permissible and the Autonomy of Medicine is Not

The debate in this issue regarding the Roman Catholic condemnationof the morality of sterilization is puzzling for Protestants.As I will argue the puzzlement arises on two grounds. First,why would anyone object to direct sterilization for the cureor prevention of disease? Second, if one wanted to challengesuch an objection on moral grounds why would one turn to medicineto do so? For Christian ethics there is nothing wrong in principlewith direct sterilization when there are good reasons for precludingthe possibility of an additional pregnancy; and it is a serioustheological mistake to treat medicine as an independent moralauthority.     

循证医学:连接医患之间沟通的桥梁

1　医患关系的现状和存在的问题医患关系成为近年来大众关心的热门话题 ,其矛盾日渐突出 ,许多事例见诸报端[1] 。医患关系问题有几个方面 :一是患者对自己所享有的权利不清楚。患者的权利包括 :拥有疾病获得救治服务的权利 ,有获得受到尊重的、公正的费用节省的医疗服务的权利 ,有知情并参与做出诊治决策的权利 ,有保密权和隐私权。病人的权利是一个消费者权利的体现 ,但目前法律对其保护作用极其脆弱。病人往往处于被动的弱势地位。病人对医院有时处于既离不开又很无奈的境地 ,常常不能获得有效的保护。二是解决医疗纠纷有“几难” :患者…     

Ethnic Amalgamation, Like it or not: Inheritance in Early Modern Jewish Rome

Roman Jewry was a composite group in the early sixteenth century, including new arrivals from southern Italy, as well as Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula. There were Italians Jews, and Ashkenazim. By the middle of the century, they had amalgamated well. The out-marriage rate between the different groups was constantly increasing. One reason for this was the need to unify administrative procedures. This is especially noticeable with respect to laws of inheritance, in which, thanks to the Jewish Rabbinic notaries, the father and son Judah and Isaac Piattelli, it had become standard for a widower to return to his father-in-law one-third of the dowry, irrespective of how long the marriage had lasted. Jews found themselves adopting Christian procedures, yet also modifying them for Jewish use, thus creating unified Jewish procedure, but allowing for continued acculturation, even during the ghetto period.