By Ashley Pereyra
Reporter

Medicine and spirituality are not often talked about side by side.

Dr. David Levy, a neurosurgeon and author of “Gray Matter,” a book on the intersection of medicine and faith, will speak with students and faculty at 6:30 p.m. today in the B110 Baylor Sciences Building.

The talk, “Surgery & Spiritual Practice: Do Faith and Medicine Mix?” is sponsored by Alpha Epsilon Delta, a Texas Beta chapter of the National Health Pre-professional Honor Society, and the Baylor Medical Humanities program.

Dr. Lauren A. Barron, associate director of the medical humanities program, said this is a great opportunity for her students and the Waco community to hear Levy speak.

“He’s impressive both from the clinical stand-point of having a lot of not only experience and expertise in neurosurgery, but he’s also published a lot of papers and research about neurosurgical issues,” Barron said. “He’s also an accomplished speaker and has spent a lot of time thinking about the issue of spirituality in medical practice.”

Levy attended Emory Medical School in Atlanta, Ga., and obtained his neurosurgical training at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. He also completed a fellowship in endovascular neurosurgery at the University of Vienna, Austria.

“We don’t often have an example of a physician who is willing in the 21st century in the United States of America — to take seriously the fact that we are spiritual beings in physical bodies,” Barron said. “And too often medicine has focused just on bodies, body parts and diagnoses and not the soul.”

The Medical Humanities program offers innovative new courses that focus on the role of Christian spirituality in health care, the importance of the relationship between patient and practitioner and the changing nature of health care in the 21st century.