The Five Principles of Jesuit Education and Health Care

Loyola belongs to an international Jesuit network of service and learning. Five principles of Jesuit education guide Loyola’s direction, as well as the entire experience of teaching and learning at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing.

1. Passion for quality

We set demanding standards of learning and patient care for students, faculty and all medical professionals. If the enterprise is worth doing at all, it is certainly worth our very best.

2. A commitment to lifelong learning

Continuing education for Loyola’s medical professionals, along with patient education toward wellness and the prevention of illness, locates Loyola in the heart of the Ignatian tradition. This 450-year old tradition works at finding God in all the ways that knowledge and technology, research and creative problem-solving serve the world and its people.

3. Preoccupation with questions of ethics and values

Care for the whole person, family support, personal integrity, as well as medical access for those in need, have always been promoted through the Jesuit encounter with medicine. In addition, Loyola actively promotes the strong ethical integrity of Catholic health-care as described in the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services." (USCCB, 2001).

4. The importance of religious experience

The experience of God is vital and must be integrated into the processes of healing and learning so that everyone at the health system has the opportunity to grow in both knowledge and faith, in learning and belief.

5. Health care and education are person-centered

No matter how large or complex the institution, each individual is important and is given as much personal attention as humanly possible. We believe we must use our learning and leadership, our values and compassion in service to a world so desperately in need of life and hope. For us at Loyola, this is what it means that "we also treat the human spirit."