Sounds just like home. Only there they like to call him a Champion.
I pull healing energy directly from the Fade. Pulling a Spirit can allow for a more varied type of healing or bring out more in desperation when we have no Lyrium and we're overworked. I can do it, but it would take some more study, I became a Grey Warden and fighting skills were needed even more than healing, so I've always focused on my Force magic than I did evolving my Healing.