title: Letters to silent teachers in Tzu Chi Medical School: a spiritual interaction.
abstract: This article examines the spiritual communication between medical students and the donated dead body they anatomized, referred to as the silent teacher. Data were obtained from the medical school of Tzu Chi University in Taiwan, where students are required to write a letter to the silent teacher at the end of the semester after they have anatomized the body. The school has collected and published a total of 89 letters from 1996 to 2001. This article content analyzes all the 89 letters published and draws common themes from them. Based on the results of this content analysis, we have developed a model of spiritual communication.
authors: Department of Communication Studies, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, 02881, USA. gmchen@uri.edu
authors: Guo-Ming
authors: GM
authors: Chen
authors: Medical Simulation Center, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan, ROC.
authors: Chien
authors: C
authors: Chang
authors: Department of Foreign Languages, ChinaJiliang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, P.R. China.
authors: Tong
authors: T
authors: Yu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015709:Correspondence as Topic; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D029181:Spirituality; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D013624:Taiwan; D014956:Writing; D055815:Young Adult