Source: AMA Journal of Ethics
How do medicine and religion relate to each other?
Medicine and religion are two very different aspects that can affect a person’s life and the care a person receives in the hospital. Physicians are entitled to have their personal and religious beliefs as well as take into account their medical training and education. There are positives and negatives associated with the interconnectedness of religion and medicine. A positive includes a better understanding that physicians have of the emotional trauma that patient’s experience and how a belief in the omniscient being will make them feel more secure in the future and in the treatment they will receive. A connection between religion and medicine that physicians experience helps them gain more empathy towards their patients. However, there are negatives that directly relate to that. A physician might have an internal conflict over what is the right thing to do and the right way to approach an issue and could possibly influence their patients to do something they don’t believe in or misguide them to follow through with the procedure that they see fit. Many healthcare workers are trying to help bridge the gap that having a comparative difference in religious beliefs and medical training brings to the hospital setting and amongst doctors, nurses, technicians, and other healthcare workers and patients who need treatments.
How can this impact patient care?
Personal beliefs can conflict with medical and logical judgement, either of a doctor or of a patient. A patient may believe in their religion more than a healthcare worker’s judgement, and in that case, the doctor needs to take into account the patient’s belief and make a compromise or conviction. When a patient is diagnosed with a serious illness, they often resolve to pray more than thinking of a logical approach to treatment. A person’s response is to react emotionally before they think rationally because emotions override rationale in a moment of panic and overwhelming stress. Conflicting feelings would cause a significant decline in patient care due to the passionate emotions that physicians and patients feel about their respective opinions and will not take their medical training and logical reasoning into account when making a treatment or progression decision. This can cause issues in the future and is one of the main reasons that religion needs to be addressed separately from the medical perspective.
Citations:
Comments