An Atheist Nurse in King James Hospital

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Are there any other atheist nurses out there? How do you handle how religious healthcare is? I don't feel comfortable praying with a patient but I will find someone who is comfortable but the minute I say "I am not comfortable praying with you but let me go get you someone who can pray with you" and I go ask other people on the floor if they would pray with my patient I have been told everything from "just suck it up and fake it" to "I wish you atheists would quit trying to push your religion down our throats" to the other nurses saying I should be fired because this is a Christian (insert hospital or state or country).

i have never tried to convert someone away from their religion. There are not a lot off options since the hospitals in my area are St Joseph's, St Anthony's, Lutheran

Specializes in Med/surg, Onc.

I've never seen someone decline to answer if they had a religious preference so I guess it never occurred to me to not answer that I have no religion.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

"I don't discuss my personal life because you and your health are my focus while I'm here."

Would that maybe work?

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Specializes in Med/surg, Onc.

Phrases like that can and do work. The only two times I was outright asked I was pretty close with the people already.

I think hunk ive only been asked to pray a few times as well though. I'm sure different areas experience different things. When/if the situation presents itself I decide at that time what to divulge.

I I just don't usually see people make a big deal out of praying with a patient if they are the same religion, which is telling them personal info by doing it, as I do when people decline praying due to a difference in religion or lack of religion.

To to each their own on what we each decide to do.

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Phrases like that can and do work. The only two times I was outright asked I was pretty close with the people already.

I think hunk ive only been asked to pray a few times as well though. I'm sure different areas experience different things. When/if the situation presents itself I decide at that time what to divulge.

I I just don't usually see people make a big deal out of praying with a patient if they are the same religion, which is telling them personal info by doing it, as I do when people decline praying due to a difference in religion or lack of religion.

To to each their own on what we each decide to do.

In my area, asking someone what church they go to is a normal question someone would ask, even to a complete stranger.

In the two years I've been at this hospital, I've only worked with ONE other nurse who wasn't born and raised here, then went to a local community college to get an ADN. It's crazy. There is an extreme lack of diversity, and that lack of exposure has left people misinformed, and closed-minded. I had a coworker that thought being an atheist meant that I worshiped the devil...

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I have gotten the devil worship thing before. What I hate the most is the "well then you have no morals because morals come from God". Here is what I told someone the other day when they said that "If the only thing that keeps you from murdering and torturing people is your fear of Hell and not because it's just wrong and you wouldn't want it done to you or a family member then I am really worried about your mental health". They proceeded to tell me that everybody would kill people if they could get away with it and not go to Hell. I am staying away from that person they scare me (and I don't scare easily I used to work in a prison with maximum security and death row inmates and the way this nurse said if it weren't for fear of hell that she would kill people really freaked me out)

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Specializes in Behavioral Health.

I clicked because of the allusion to "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." I stayed because I've had this problem.

I live in a secular region, but work at an extremely religious organization. Charge nurses are required to ask if anyone would like to pray at the beginning of each shift (no one has to pray, they just have to ask). The hospital shares a campus with a church, and a lot of our patients and staff are part of that congregation. So, I get asked to pray a lot, and other nurses do pray over people a lot. I wouldn't mind standing silently while someone prays (what I do at shift change), but I don't know how to pray. I tell them I need to spend time with other patients but I'd be happy to have a chaplain come pray with them.

"Hi God. Please, umm, keep an eye on Bob in this time of recovery. He presented to the ED with rales bilaterally, sating in the 80s, complaining of shortness of breath. He was started on Lasix and admitted for observation overnight. He put out about 1,300ml of urine since 5pm last night. Lung sounds are improving and O2 is now in the low 90s. So, uhh... amen?"

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I wondered it anyone would get the homage to Mark Twain. (Ok so I am an atheist nerd). Luckily, I guess, I was raised catholic and went to catholic school so if I have to fake it I can. Our hospital has prayers paged over head several times a day (5 or 6 I think) and I usually ignore it but I really realized how bad it can be when my father was a patient and they were wheeling him down the hall to surgery and they announced prayer time and proceeded to start reciting the 23rd Psalm so as he is heading in the OR you hear echoing in the hallway "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil" it actually scared my very religious father (we had already had a spooky occurrence on the way to hospital where as we were stopped at a light in front of the Bassillica, The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, a long line of cardinals passed in front of the car at the same time there was an error on the radio station and the song 'sold at the Grundy county auction' seemed to get stuck playing and repeating the line "Gimme a sign, gimme a sign, gimme a sign" so he was already spooked then to have that psalm recited as he went in. Plus he had found out right before his surgery to remove colon cancer that his mother was diagnosed with colon cancer so that psalm was the icing on the crazy spooky cake)

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This topic is so fitting - I just accepted a job as an RN at a catholic nursing home, complete with nuns & a huge chapel. I am nervous that as an atheist, people will think differently of me. I treat everyone the same, regardless of religion, but I have experienced some discrimination & judgement due to my lack of religious beliefs. I am hoping to prove that I can show my new coworkers that just having different beliefs doesn't make me an inferior nurse.

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I wondered it anyone would get the homage to Mark Twain. (Ok so I am an atheist nerd). Luckily, I guess, I was raised catholic and went to catholic school so if I have to fake it I can. Our hospital has prayers paged over head several times a day (5 or 6 I think) and I usually ignore it but I really realized how bad it can be when my father was a patient and they were wheeling him down the hall to surgery and they announced prayer time and proceeded to start reciting the 23rd Psalm so as he is heading in the OR you hear echoing in the hallway "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil" it actually scared my very religious father (we had already had a spooky occurrence on the way to hospital where as we were stopped at a light in front of the Bassillica, The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, a long line of cardinals passed in front of the car at the same time there was an error on the radio station and the song 'sold at the Grundy county auction' seemed to get stuck playing and repeating the line "Gimme a sign, gimme a sign, gimme a sign" so he was already spooked then to have that psalm recited as he went in. Plus he had found out right before his surgery to remove colon cancer that his mother was diagnosed with colon cancer so that psalm was the icing on the crazy spooky cake)

I did, and I should have given you props...

Nicely done.

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When a patient asks you to pray, it's not about you at all, it's about the PATIENT and his needs. He may be terrified and he needs that support. Just think of it as a placebo that will help your patient feel better. If you can't think of any appropriate words, ask a colleague or go online and find a little prayer. It WON'T hurt you. Kindness won't cost you a single thing.

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Specializes in Behavioral Health.
When a patient asks you to pray, it's not about you at all, it's about the PATIENT and his needs. He may be terrified and he needs that support. Just think of it as a placebo that will help your patient feel better. If you can't think of any appropriate words, ask a colleague or go online and find a little prayer. It WON'T hurt you. Kindness won't cost you a single thing.

I don't think anyone has implied it would hurt. I'm comfortable with other people's religion (two of my three hospitals have been religious, the first had nuns), I just don't speak the language. So, as with anything else related to patient care, I call in someone who has skills I don't. Would watching a nurse stumble over making up a prayer be more or less comforting to the patient than having a chaplain say something like quoting a fitting piece of scripture? I've always assumed the latter, and acted accordingly.

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Specializes in Pediatric.
I don't think anyone has implied it would hurt. I'm comfortable with other people's religion (two of my three hospitals have been religious, the first had nuns), I just don't speak the language. So, as with anything else related to patient care, I call in someone who has skills I don't. Would watching a nurse stumble over making up a prayer be more or less comforting to the patient than having a chaplain say something like quoting a fitting piece of scripture? I've always assumed the latter, and acted accordingly.

I'm going to agree with this.

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