The purpose of this paper is to discuss and emphasize the necessity of lectures on spirituality in Japanese medical education. The paper consists of three main parts. In the first, we attempt to clarify the meaning of the relevant terms: spirit, spirituality, spiritual care, and so on. The basic concept of spirit in the medical field assumes that the spirit is a person's essence and warrants and constitutes the Wholeness in people, which means the integration of somatic, mental, and spiritual aspects. Furthermore, being human means being free and responsible and, as V.E.Frankl demonstrated, having the inner ability to search for life's meaning. In the second part, we review the characteristics and methods of contemporary medicine and its view of a person. Japanese medical professionals, particularly medical doctors, are unfamiliar with the concepts of spirituality and spiritual care. Therefore, it is essential to consider the relationship between the spiritual concepts and contemporary medicme. In the last part, we discuss the reasons why lectures on spirituality are needed in Japanese medical education. We propose three reasons for this requirement: (1)patients, particularly the dying，have spiritual needs; (2)contemporary Japanese medical education has few lectures on spirituality, whereas it places great emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge on biomedicine and the clinical techniques to diagnose and treat patients; and (3)spirituality lectures in medical education will help students to understand the nihilism that pervades medicine and also provide them with a basic appreciation of human dignity
