At Albert Einstein, Med Students Explore Spirituality With Chabad

New York, NY — Today, more than two-thirds of medical schools in the U.S. offer courses on religion, spirituality and medicine. Tomorrow’s doctors are taught to value the prayer circle, to halt the pre-op schedule for Native American healing rituals. But who is tending to the spiritual needs of the medical students?

Convincing med students – already squeezed past breaking point with lectures, labs, clinical duties piled upon endless hospital hours – to consider the spiritual side of their calling requires more than an invitation to a Shabbat dinner.

At the Chabad near the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, the dialogue between healer and rabbi begins with a lump of charcoal.

On a warm summer night, savory smoke billows from the charcoal grill, overpowering the formaldehyde odor that clings to the medical students’ khakis. The strip of grass behind student housing swarms with hungry future Jewish m.d.’s waiting for burgers to char from muscle to meal at Chabad’s Meet and Meat, every Tuesday that weather permits.

As they fuel up on protein, take a breather from their intense studies, they get to know Rabbi Zalman and Tamar Teitelbaum of Chabad of the Medical Community. Informal chats lead to Shabbat meals and lunchtime learning sessions. They provide a safe place for the doctors to evaluate the day’s life and death decisions through the lens of Jewish spirituality.

Every week as the Teitelbaums flip 36 pounds of hamburger patties, 24 pounds of hot dogs, 10 pounds of chicken wings, they watch the students evolve from college kids to serious medical folk. At the beginning of the semester, beer, diet Coke and bottled water disappear from the cooler at an equal rate. The Teitelbaums can tell when the first test results are in, when the enormity of actually completing medical school hits the first years: that’s when beer consumption drops off to nearly nil.

Article Continued (Lubavitch.com)

Med students at the Meet and Meat bbq with Chabad.