Treating the Muslim patient

SunnyAndrsn · Oct 6, 2009

I would hope that your charge nurse is culturally competent when making assigments and would assign Muslim women to female nurses, and Muslim male pts. to male nursing staff.

I'm still in my nursing prerequsite phase of college, but I have some concerns about treating Muslim patients and would like some clarification. I'm very eager to make sure my patients are comfortable with the level of care I provide and are comfortable with my role as a MALE nurse.
Now, my first concern is that Muslims do not believe males should handle the role of the nurse and thus refuse to be treated by male nurses. Is this true? If so, how can I handle such a situation should it present itself?
Should the above statement be false and Muslims do appreciate male nurses, what are their strict standards for giving them intimate care such as sponge baths and foley catheters? Do male and female Muslims have different requirements for their care?
What other situations involve carefulness so as to avoid disrespecting their sensitive beliefs? Anything particular involving pediatric Muslim patients?
I hope you can see that I want to come off as culturally competent and do not want to cause embarrassment or disrespect to any of my future patients. Part of the reason I'm taking a class on ASL and deaf culture.

FLArn · Oct 6, 2009

Not being from a non-Euro background I have nothing to add to this discussion other than to thank the OP for being so thoughtful and wishing the best of luck in your career!

Inspired By Silence · Oct 6, 2009

Muslim protoplasm is the same as any other human being. Treat them like you would any other patient. If they refuse your care....fine, let someone else pick up the slack. This is not something you encounter in the real world that often. Usually it is just an unlikely scenario nursing instructors enjoy wasting time on instead of teaching students useful information that actually improves care.
If you are going to start worrying about muslim customs, you better start learning nursing considerations for sikhs, buddhists, shinto, scientologists, wiccans, the nation of yahweh, followers of the prince philip movement, the flying spaghetti monster (my personal favorite) and nuwaubians. Well, at least nuwaubianism has its roots in muslim culture so not too much to learn there. Start studying dude, there are a lot of sensitive people out there!

I do not appreciate your skepticism at all. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make my religious patients comfortable while I provide the highest level of culturally sensitive care that I can.

Who are you to say I only care about the common faiths I'm likely to encounter? For your information, I study cultures and religions on my own time so that I can advocate for awareness to the sensitivities other health care workers might overlook.

The job of a nurse requires one to fully advocate for his or her patient when the patient is not fully able to advocate for themselves. If you're going to bash me for meeting the job description then you can take your unemployment card and stick it where your foot currently resides.

Inspired By Silence · Oct 6, 2009

Not being from a non-Euro background I have nothing to add to this discussion other than to thank the OP for being so thoughtful and wishing the best of luck in your career!

Thank you. I truly appreciate your comment.

Fiona59 · Oct 6, 2009

I live in a country that is not a "melting pot" but a mosiac. However, the patient regardless of nationality or religious persuasion is cared for by the nurse that is available. Our dietary service provides food to meet all religious or cultural diets. I have never seen a male, Muslim patient refuse a female nurse nor a female Muslim refuse a male nurse, usually it is the male nurse who will ask a female to insert a foley if it is required. Isn't it somewhere in the Muslim teaching that gender is not relevant in the provision of healthcare? I'm sure one of the Muslim posters pointed this out a while back.

Your posts show your youth and inexperience. Make it through your first clinical time in a large inner city hospital and then come back and revisit us.

AlabamaBelle · Oct 7, 2009

It only takes a few moments to ask for preferences. I work with children and their families in a critical care setting. No one has ever been upset when I ask about their preferences in regard to respecting their religious beliefs/culture/customs.

This is just part of our unit culture. We've had a Native American shaman come in at the family's request. We had a little boy whose parent's family lived in China and their healer gave very detailed information about what was wrong with this child, things he could not have known. He only knew this child was very ill. His accuracy was truly phenomenal. He had some suggestions of things we could do that were very easily integrated into our care. He survived.

Asking with the appropriate attitude is always welcome. Wanna come work with us?

Inspired By Silence · Oct 7, 2009

It only takes a few moments to ask for preferences. I work with children and their families in a critical care setting. No one has ever been upset when I ask about their preferences in regard to respecting their religious beliefs/culture/customs.
This is just part of our unit culture. We've had a Native American shaman come in at the family's request. We had a little boy whose parent's family lived in China and their healer gave very detailed information about what was wrong with this child, things he could not have known. He only knew this child was very ill. His accuracy was truly phenomenal. He had some suggestions of things we could do that were very easily integrated into our care. He survived.
Asking with the appropriate attitude is always welcome. Wanna come work with us?

What an amazing story. I'd love to work at your hospital.

Fiona59 · Oct 7, 2009

. .. We've had a Native American shaman come in at the family's request. We had a little boy whose parent's family lived in China and their healer gave very detailed information about what was wrong with this child, things he could not have known. He only knew this child was very ill. His accuracy was truly phenomenal. He had some suggestions of things we could do that were very easily integrated into our care. He survived.

My hospital has an Aboriginal liasion service which handles everything from dietary issues, needs for a sweat lodge, language issues, visits from elders, etc. We provide service to the Canadian North, everyone Cree to Inuit are cared for in a manner appropriate to their belief system.

RedCell · Oct 8, 2009

i do not appreciate your skepticism at all. there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make my religious patients comfortable while i provide the highest level of culturally sensitive care that i can.
who are you to say i only care about the common faiths i'm likely to encounter? for your information, i study cultures and religions on my own time so that i can advocate for awareness to the sensitivities other health care workers might overlook.
the job of a nurse requires one to fully advocate for his or her patient when the patient is not fully able to advocate for themselves. if you're going to bash me for meeting the job description then you can take your unemployment card and stick it where your foot currently resides.

i certainly apologize for getting your panties in a wad and i really did find your attempt at making a funny amusing. however, i don't think we are seeing eye to eye on this subject. when i read posts such as this i do become skeptical. to put it bluntly, cultural awareness and sensitivity training is a complete load of crap. as i and other posters have said, if someone takes offense to a certain nurse taking care of them, get someone else (if you can find someone else). there is no reason to force a nursing student to sacrifice an entire semester learning this basic concept.

the problem with new grads today is that instead of spending more time in clinical or in the classroom taking useful courses, they are stuck being indoctrinated with cultural feel good and love everyone classes. the important sciences such as pathophysiology, pharmacology, anatomy etc... are being dumbed down and are getting the back seat so more time can be spent on nursing "theory" and cultural competency. as a result, we are getting nurses who could not recognize an airway obstruction when the patient's life depends on it, but they sure would know to turn the face towards mecca after they have expired.

if you want to advocate for your patients make sure you are spending at least as much time learning the sciences as you are learning about religious customs. understanding the basic concepts of preload afterload and heart rate will go a lot farther in ensuring the health of your muslim patient with aortic stenosis than will "advocating" for a dinner tray free of gelatin when they are decompensating.

Inspired By Silence · Oct 8, 2009

I caew for the science portion of nursing as much as the social portion. I'm not dumbing down my class schedule, I'm building to it.

MedSurgeMess · Oct 8, 2009

RedCell, while you make great points, you are coming across way too harshly....I certainly think that anyone who wishes to learn more to accentuate the way they care for someone is an asset, although I do agree that we spend way too much time on it in classes. It is important, but not a necessity in every area of the world.

Inspired, I think you should proceed as you are, and give RedCell's statements some thought. You can be as culturally competent as they come, but it doesn't matter if the patient doesn't make it. Good luck with your studies.

MikeyBSN · Oct 9, 2009

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and be unpopular again here. First of all, it's great to consider a patient's unique concerns when you are caring for them. However, I don't believe that this is an issue for two reasons. First of all, as already pointed out, I understand that there is no "rule" in Islam when it comes to the sex of a health care provide. Second, I don't believe that we should have to honor an unreasonable request. If there is a sensitive issue, the person can have someone of the same sex be present. However, I don't think the patient should get to pick the sex of their nurse anymore than they should get to pick the race, religion or age of their care provider, at least not in the hospital setting. Such a request is unreasonable. If they want a different nurse for a good reason, they can request one. However, this isn't Sim Hospital Stay, you don't get to build your own nurse. I don't think you should worry about how to comply with sexist, racist or other unreasonable demands. Sometimes there are sex-sensitive issues, but nothing any heath care provider can't handle. All of us guys have had countless pregnant lady partsl bleeding women and all of the girls no how to handle a member that drips when it's not supposed to. We are professionals, and should be treated as such.