This article describes data from a qualitative study of Puerto Rican doctors' clinical and personal experiences of spiritual transformation and its effects on doctors who self-identified as spiritual, religious, or Spiritist. This latter group follows a philosophy based on the teachings of Allan Kardec (1804-1859), who codified a spirit-based belief system now popular in southern Europe and Latin America. Seventy-four doctors, representing all specialties except psychiatry, took part in a phenomenological exploration of their medical and spiritual ways of being and how these were integrated into their clinical work and personal lives. Doctors' ages ranged from 39 to 83 years; one third were women. Semistructured, in-depth interviews of 1 hr or more and observations of personal lives were recorded and analyzed using MAXQDA, open coding, and grounded theory.
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