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

Good discussion. As for pt's I have no problem holding their hand, bowing my head, etc as they pray, but if they want a prayer led I call in the chaplain. If a patient asks me directly about my religion I say "my family is Lutheran". Which is true. They are; I'm not. But pt's want to feel comfortable with their nurse and I don't mind going with their fantasies a bit. If they start getting pushy or more intrusive I have to cut it off (politely of course) and the indulgence of fantasies come to an end. But that has rarely happened. Most people what to just feel comforted and cared for.

Co-workers are another thing altogether. The facility puts out prayers in our newsletters, there are prayers and crosses on the walls, and they pipe in the Sunday worship service on the TV every sunday morning, which in reality is a welcome break from Fox news. But none of that bothers me too much, it's just there. Sort of like people leaving Christmas lights and life size Santa Clauses up all year. It gets old, but so be it. Where I am uncomfortable is with my boss who is very religious and seems to hire mostly fellow Catholics who she goes to church with. I get along great with my co-workers but don't feel comfortable at all sharing my beliefs, or lack there of. Not that she would outright fire me for that, but oh she could make my life hell. Hmm... well, hell on earth ;)

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How hard can it be to stand quietly with your patient and/or family while prayers are being offered? Regardless of religion we need to empathize with our patients (read: not sympathize). Nursing is an altruistic profession. That means we do for our patients what they can't do for themselves--including prayer--without qualification.

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Specializes in L&D, CCU, ICU, PCU, RICU, PCICU, & LTC..

One definition of 'prayer' is "to hope or wish very much for something to happen: to seriously ask (someone) to do something. to make a request in a humble manner" according to Merriam-Webster. NOTHING about God or any religion.

I pray he gets well.

I pray you don't fire me for that med error I made.

I pray I will be a good nurse.

These are all non-God prayers, spoken just in the vernacular of life.

If one is uncomfortable with religious prayers, one can say a general one. "Please help this family in their time of need. Let [patient] receive the best care possible. Guide us to be there for them in any way needed." No need for God, Allah, Buddha, or Satan to be named. Let THEM say 'Amen' if they want, but you don't have to.

I do pray that ICUMaggie and MountainView come to terms with their anger and other negative emotions so they can better benefit from the give and take that nurses on here can benefit from. Such bitter attitudes will affect their work and their patients which is something none of us want for them. This is a wonderful forum for mutual discussions and I thank the administrators of it for all they do.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

"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?"

Wonderful!

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
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)

Wow...I didn't think anyone could beat Dogen's post, but you just did.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
How hard can it be to stand quietly with your patient and/or family while prayers are being offered? Regardless of religion we need to empathize with our patients (read: not sympathize). Nursing is an altruistic profession. That means we do for our patients what they can't do for themselves--including prayer--without qualification.

It does not mean that you give up your rights. It's possible to be empathetic but not pray.

If patient is capable of asking a nurse to pray for him/her, the patient is capable of saying a prayer. Prayers can be said aloud or silently, so I can't really think of an instance where a patient wouldn't be able to said his/her own prayer.

I went to nursing school to be a nurse, not a chaplain. In thirty years of being an RN, I only once prayed out loud in the presence of the patient and his wife, and that was a very unusual circumstance.

Being altruistic doesn't mean you give in to every patient request and become a doormat.

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I refuse to fake my disbelief anymore. I spent the 1st half of my life being constantly disappointed by what I was being taught in church, Catholic High School and University top that off with my father being a minister I feel I have 'done my time.'

The last institution I worked in was a religious one and they had a 'Spiritual Ambassador' role for staff members that wanted to take the training for spiritually and religiously supporting a patient until the Chaplain arrived.

It annoys me that believers feel they must witness to me and sell me the glory of God and belief. I respect other's varied beliefs and just wish they would once respect my non-belief.

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Ok then I will ask what you believe to be the issue with faking prayer. Which I do not consider just bowing head and holding hand to be doing but I would be interested in hearing your expert advice on faking prayer. And I think you have a serious issue if you comment on an open conversational thread and then are rude to the other people who respond and ask for clarification. Wouldn't you assume that if they didn't know what the risk was then I wouldn't either.

are you religious?

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How was I anti-catholic? I just quoted what several of the staff had said to me when I asked if they would mind praying with the patient while I did their dressings or something. In small towns where everyone works together and goes to the same churches with the people they work with you would be surprised at the discrimination. And actually it's not illegal. The U.S. Government has granted churches, religious schools and religious hospitals the right to discriminate based on religion. The hospital could fire me because I am atheist and the only reason they don't is I went to catholic school with the chief of staff

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How hard can it be to stand quietly with your patient and/or family while prayers are being offered? Regardless of religion we need to empathize with our patients (read: not sympathize). Nursing is an altruistic profession. That means we do for our patients what they can't do for themselves--including prayer--without qualification.

Pas I stated before that is not the issue its when the person asks me to say something (has happened several times) or asks what prayer I was to say or what I want to pray about and then that usually leads to bigger issues with whether I an saved

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Specializes in Medical-Surgial, Cardiac, Pediatrics.

Although an atheist is defined as one who can't in good conscience believe (as opposed to one who actively disbelieves), most believers feel threatened by just the idea of it and if you are an atheist it's best not to engage or even to reveal that.

That is actually the reason most atheists DO want to engage or reveal it.

The term "active disbelief" seems to imply a very consistent action that is required to continue the existence of a lack of belief, like prayer is a means to continue and strengthen a belief. As an atheist, I do not put forth any effort into continuing my lack of belief. If anything, since the age of about five, I had to consistently force myself to try and believe, rather than not. The act of not believing was and continues to be much more primal, passive, and built-in than believing ever was.

I also don't believe not because my good conscience tells me not to, either. It wasn't even so much of decision to not believe (because that implies that I did believe at some point and that I had to choose to NOT do so, like the default setting is belief), as more of an acceptance that, "Oh, I don't do that, and I'm just going to stop bothering to pretend any more, because geez, that's a waste of energy.."

One of the reasons why many atheists now are struggling to bring it up is because of the general idea that people who don't believe have to work against something in order to have a purpose. Why does my lack of belief feel threatening to anyone? I don't work against anything or even hate anything. I'm not the opposite of a Christian, because my humanist values encompass many of their values. I am not against any god, just by not believing. I just exist.

So why should atheists just not bring things up, and continue to do the great things many of us do, and leave the world continuing to think we're somehow "threatening", just because they don't know enough of us to be able to change that rather inaccurate definition? I, for one, look forward to the day when I'm not forced to feel badly for declining a prayer that someone ASSUMES I'll do, and then have it turned on me like "But this will make me happy, even if you don't believe, what harm could it do? You're being more hurtful by turning me down, so why not just care about me and do it?"

That'll be a great day.

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How many times a day do I hear "god is good!" Or "gods miracle" etc. In my very cynical head I think to myself, "yeah, those antibiotics had nothing to do with it"

Out loud I nod and smile. Whatever gets them through the day.

It's the horrible broken cries of "why is god doing this to me" that hurt me to hear, I want to comfort them, and tell them gods not doing it it's just a horrible twist of life, that we all die some day.

I mean, it must be a horrible feeling of betrayal that your ultimate loving God/best friend and personal wish granter is leaving you in dismal pain.

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