Hospice Nurse's comment.

[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

Hello,

A patient I know very well from my first job as a CNA in a nursing home went into hospice care this week. I stayed a volunteer at the facility after I left and visited him every couple weeks and over the years got to know him and his family very well. His decline had accelerated, he had fallen and broken broken his hip.

The patient, "Rick," was unconscious and I was chatting with his wife, "Carol" who is a devout Christian. She noted Rick, "Knew the Lord" and was ready to pass on. I mentioned that Rick had talked about being ready to die quite a bit recently. We talked a bit about Carol's continuing volunteer work with her church.

The nurse came in and was checking on Rick and updating Carol on the patient's status. The nurse did a fair job of explaining what is going on and that Rick would probably pass away fairly soon.

As the nurse was leaving Carol noted, "He's ready to meet Jesus."

The nurse stopped, turned to Carol and said, "I know what you mean - but I've already met Jesus," and he walked out. His tone suggested he was correcting Carol. Carol didn't respond.

The nurse's comment bothered me. No one asked this nurse if he had met Jesus or not or what his religious views were at all. The nurse didn't inquire as to any spiritual needs Carol or Rick might have, he just inserted his opinion and then left.

I understand you may be reading this and say from a spiritual care standpoint, "That nurse did nothing wrong." But in my opinion he did EVERYTHING wrong. He simply inserted his own personal religious views into the nurse-patient relationship while doing nothing to care for the patient.

Think about it for a bit. What if the nurse had said, "I know what you mean, but I'm a Muslim and don't care if I ever meet Jesus" or "I know what you mean, but Jesus is a character from Christian folklore." And then just strolled on out of the room.

In those cases, people would get pretty upset and say, "He was inappropriate and had no business interjecting his personal views." Same goes for this case.

This post is not a criticism of any religious or spiritual view, it is a criticism of a nurse caring for his own spiritual needs and ignoring the patients'.

[leslie :-D]

i can assure you, what this nurse did/said, was so very inappropriate.

we've had major debates on this very site, about a nurse's role in a pt's spiritual needs...

and most agree, what this nurse said to rick, was not only inappropriate, but highly, highly insensitive.

please do not perceive this as the norm, because i can assure you - it is not.

i am sorry carol was subjected to this nurse's ignorance.

it should have never, ever happened.

leslie

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

Doesn't matter what one's own religious or lack thereof thoughts are. It has not a place in the world in caring for Hospice patients. It is about them, not us. After hearing "he is ready to meet Jesus" I would think the proper response to that would be--"would you like me to call in your minister to visit with you now?"or "can I send in the chaplin?"

[annajustanna]

the

cross in our bodies

[color=#400080]this

is a pretty neat story and an interesting thing that few of us

know. [color=#400080]it's

brief, so please read. (from a

doctor)

[color=#400080]

a

couple of days ago i was running (i use that term very

loosely) on my treadmill, watching a dvd sermon by louie

giglio... and i was blown away! i want to share what i

learned.....

[color=#400080]he

(louie) was talking about how inconceivably big our god is...

how he spoke the universe into being.. how he breathes stars

out of his mouth that are huge raging balls of fire..

etc. etc. then he went on to speak of how this star-breathing,

universe creating god also knitted our human bodies together

with amazing detail and wonder. at this point i am loving it

(fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) .. and i

was remembering how i was constantly amazed during medical

school as i learned more and more about god's handiwork. i

remember so many times thinking..'how can anyone deny that a

creator did all of this???'

[color=#400080]louie

went on to talk about how we can trust that the god who

created all this, also has the power to hold it all together

when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving creator

is also our sustainer.

[color=#400080]and

then i lost my breath. and it wasn't because i was running my

treadmill, either!!!

it

was because he started talking about

laminin. i

knew about laminin..

here

is how [color=#002f80]wikipedia [color=#400080]describes

them: '[color=#600000]laminins[color=#400080]

are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the

structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every

animal tissue' you see.... laminins are what hold us

together.... literally. they are cell adhesion molecules. they

are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell.

without them, we would literally fall apart. and i knew all

this already. but what i didn't know is what they looked

like..

[color=#400080]but

now i do. and i have thought about it a thousand times

since (already)....here is what the structure of laminin looks

like... and this is not a 'christian portrayal' of it.... if

you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of

literature, this is what you will

see....

[color=#400080]now tell

me that our god is not the coolest!!!

amazing.[color=#424282]

[color=#400080]the glue that holds us

together.... all of us...... is in the shape of the

cross.[color=#424282]

[color=#400080]immediately colossians

1:15-17 comes to mind. he is the image of the invisible

god, the firstborn over all creation.[color=#424282]

[color=#400080]all things were

created by him and for him.[color=#424282]

[color=#400080]he is before all

things, and in him all things hold together.' colossians

1:15-17

[color=#400080]call me crazy. i just

think that is very, very, very cool. thousands of years before

the world knew anything about laminin, [color=#424282]p[color=#400080]aul penned those

words. and now we see that from a very literal standpoint, we are held together...

one cell to another.... by the cross.

you would never in

a quadrillion years convince me that is anything

[color=#424282]o[color=#400080]ther

than the mark of a creator who knew exactly what laminin 'glue'

would look like long before adam breathed his first

breath!![color=#400080]

what

i found when i googled [color=#600000]laminin

!!!!!!!!!!!

the cross is supposed

to be swinging when you receive this. i

hope it still is. this is cool - had to pass it on. i

think we could all use a miracle. i know i certainly

can!

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[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

[color=#400080]how he breathes stars

out of his mouth that are huge raging balls of fire..

:rotfl:

[annajustanna]

uh come on............... its alittle bit cool................your lil breathing icon is cool..................... Enjoy Life!!!!!

[leslie :-D]

if this was 100% true and indisputable, i agree, how awesome would that be.

here's what snopes has to say about it.

snopes.com: Laminin

leslie :)

[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

uh come on............... its alittle bit cool................your lil breathing icon is cool..................... Enjoy Life!!!!!

Actually that isn't a breathing icon, it is a "laughing my huge raging balls of fire" off icon.

[MzAmerykah]

After hearing "he is ready to meet Jesus" I would think the proper response to that would be--"would you like me to call in your minister to visit with you now?"or "can I send in the chaplin?"

I agree with Jadelpn here. But I can't help but wonder if there was some sort of misunderstanding on the nurse's part; did he think Carol was talking about him and not the patient? It sounds like perhaps the nurse missed the prior convo, that you and Carol were having. In any case, the focus must be the patient and family, not ourselves.

[MzAmerykah]

Think about it for a bit. What if the nurse had said, "I know what you mean, but I'm a Muslim and don't care if I ever meet Jesus" or "I know what you mean, but Jesus is a character from Christian folklore." And then just strolled on out of the room.

Just as an FYI, a Muslim would never say this. Muslims believe in and revere Jesus and his teachings. In caring for others of different religious views, especially in hospice, it is important for us as nurses to be culturally sensitive, which means being aware of other cultures and religions. So I just wanted to clear that up. Knowledge is power!

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

What it comes down to for me is that nurses shouldn't be mixing their religious beliefs with work, especially when it comes to interacting with patients.If the patient initiates it, fine. But, to push your beliefs on a patient is selfish.

[BluegrassRN]

Sounds to me like the nurse misheard the pt's wife, and thought the comment was directed a him personally.

I have to say, though, even if the comment was directed at him, as a hospice nurse I would think you would be comfortable enough with your own end-of-life beliefs that you would have something more benign to say than some sort of defensive statement.