Program on Medicine and Religion

John D. Yoon, MD

Program Director

John D. Yoon, MD is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and Visiting Scholar for the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Yoon has been with the Program on Medicine and Religion since its inception in 2009. He is an academic hospitalist, clinical ethicist, and medical educator with research interests in the fields of virtue ethics, moral psychology, and character development and professional formation in medical education. He was a co-investigator on the Project on the Good Physician, a longitudinal study of medical students funded by the New Science of Virtues Project at the University of Chicago. He maintains a faculty affiliation with the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, Center for Health and the Social Sciences (CHeSS), and the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence. His area of scholarship has addressed professional identity formation of physicians, physician well-being, and the role of religion/spirituality in shaping the moral and professional formation of physicians-in-training. Dr. Yoon has been deeply involved in generating new educational initiatives at the University that promote the study of Religion, Ethics, and Medicine to Medical Students, Divinity Students, undergraduates in the College, and other residents and trainees in health care.

Dr. Yoon’s long-term vision for the Program is to establish a new field of Medical Education Chaplaincy ultimately through the development of a Chaplain Scholars Training Program. These “medical education” chaplains would be trained to provide spiritual care and cultivate the whole-person flourishing of clinicians in health care who are training to care for others, particularly in light of the existential challenges of clinician burnout and moral distress in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He is in the process of being ordained as a minister and Spiritual Director to practicing clinicians, students, and resident trainees in health care. Toward that end, Dr. Yoon has completed a four-year certificate program of study and Internship in Spiritual Direction in the Ignatian Tradition (Society of Jesus, Jesuits Midwest Province). 

For those in health care who are interested in exploring sessions of Spiritual Direction on matters related to vocational discernment, medicine-as-a-calling, well-being and human flourishing in the practice of medicine, Dr. Yoon may be contacted for an initial consultation at: jdyoon@uchicago.edu

Michael Le Chevallier

Visiting Scholar & Co-Director, 2023-2024

Michael Le Chevallier, PhD, is the Senior Associate Director & Director of National Partnerships at the Lumen Christi Institute. In this role, he is Project Director for “In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition Nationwide,” a John Templeton Foundation funded grant, which advances conversations around the intersection of science and religion at 6 top research universities. Michael received his PhD and M.Div from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. A trained theological ethicist, his research focuses on institutions, how they shape us morally, and how they might advance or inhibit human flourishing.

Sarah Kolar 

PMR Research Fellow 2023-2024

Sarah is a second-year Master of Divinity student at the University of Chicago. She received her B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford University in 2017. Her current project investigates the unique spiritual needs of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UChicago Medicine, particularly in conversation with Jewish bioethics. She is interested in outcome oriented chaplaincy as a means to address the theological, spiritual, and emotional tenor of medical spaces.

Sarah Kim

PMR Research Fellow 2023-2024

Sarah is a research assistant for the Kern Project on the Good Physician, with a special interest in understanding the intersections of religion, narrative, and the vocation of medicine. She received her B.A. in Biology and Religious Studies from Brown University in 2022 and is currently applying to medical school. As an aspiring medical ethicist, she hopes to extend the work she started with her senior capstone in religious studies, making interfaith frameworks on end-of-life, disability, and healing more accessible. 

Jordan Millholin

PMR Research Fellow 2023-2024

Jordan is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine currently applying for residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Baylor University in 2019. He then spent a year as a Fellow in Theology, Medicine, and Culture at Duke Divinity School, graduating in 2020 with a Certificate in Theology and Healthcare. His current academic interests include researching practical wisdom in medicine and what it might mean to emphasize virtue ethics as a part of medical training.

Angel Garcia

PMR Research Fellow 2023-2024

Angel Garcia is a senior at Elmhurst University, where he is majoring in Philosophy and Psychology. He is currently analyzing how we can better understand practical wisdom in the context of disability positivism. He also has interests in race theory, philosophy of language, and bioethics. In graduate school, he plans to pursue research related to moral status and alternative ethics like entangled empathy.

Zaid Parekh

PMR Research Fellow 2023-2024

Zaid is a second-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in Biological Sciences and a minor in Philosophy. His current academic interests include understanding the intersections of ethics and religion, and how such virtues translate to a meaningful practice of medicine.

Elaine Liang

Student Office Research Assistant and PMR Research Fellow 2023-2024

Elaine is a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago, where she is a Philosophy and Allied Fields (Biological Sciences) major with a Chemistry minor. She is currently analyzing how physicians use practical wisdom in ethically complex clinical scenarios. She also has interests in religious medical ethics and will focus on Islamic medical ethics for her senior philosophy thesis. In medical school, she hopes to research on the intersection of medical ethics and health policy.