It's not my job to pray with you.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Jul 19, 2015

No, but my school boasts on being holistic focused.

Holistic nursing, FYI, is not solely about praying or providing spiritual support. It entails SO much more than that. Prayer or religious support can be a small or even non-existant part of holistic care you provide to individual patients based on those individual patients' unique needs.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Jul 19, 2015

SO true, at least in my program. One of my nursing theory texts was endorsed by Deepak, and it discussed how the nurse's energy intermingles with the patient's energy, they create a Caring Field. My instructor also brought her diving rods to class, to show how she used them to find where in her yard had the most favorable Qi for her labyrinth she was building. It was awkward.
Everyday things by dAnswering these questions in accordance with some faiths (such as my own) can appear to a well-meaning holistic nurse that the patient has spiritual deficits.

HAH! OMG, I would have loved that!

It also falls in line with the "disturbed energy field" NANDA. That's a big nope. :woot:

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Jul 19, 2015

I would never have expected this thread to kick up such a kerfuffle; guess I am kind of naive, even at my age.
My theory about everything is that as many people as there are in the world, that's as many ways they are of doing things. I roll with the flow. Like one PP mentioned, as long as they aren't trying to convert me (and that HAS happened a few times!) I'm ok with however they want to deal with the prayer thing.

I think a lot of it right now is that certain Christians feel, at least in the US, that they are experiencing their rights being compromised d/t gay marriage finding the affirmation of SCOTUS. Some are bristling and a lot of hate is getting directed toward the non-religious, ally, and/or LGBT folk. This is causing a reaction in kind against all religious people as they get painted with the same broad brush that concludes they are all bigots.

It's ugly out here, right now. Some people are acting like it's the dang '70s again -- even people born 20-30 years later.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Jul 19, 2015

Nope nope nope. Just nope. Some people have been abused by religion emotionally and perhaps even physically, and they should not feel obligated to engage in religious activities, regardless of how it affects the patient outcome. Nurses value their patients, but a nurse is a person. And people shouldn't be made to go against their beliefs or be made to remember things they'd rather forget. The patient's well being is not more important than the nurse's well being.

Okay, I don't think anyone under normal circumstances should feel that it's too far out there to just be quiet, hold their hand and hold down for them. I was not raised in a religious household but attended a private Christian school that had teachings in line with some of the wack-a-doodle, homeschoolin' quiverfull folks. I'm also gay. I continue to struggle with some internal thoughts of self-hate because of what amounted to brainwashing from a young age (my parents meant well, they had no idea what my brother and I were being subjected, too -- they just thought we were getting a good education which didn't quite pan out too well). This was made more complicated by going to a Pentecostal church by a girl I was crushing on and getting baptized physically and "with the Holy Spirit" as they say.

However, if I've managed to develop a rapport with a patient who may just go with all the things that I've had to kind of run screaming from in the other direction, fine. I'll work it out. They want me to pray? Fine, I can do that, too. Let's get down with some Jesus & the Holy Spirit and such. I can do it because I'm accustomed to HOW to do those things (but, I won't advertise this willingness to patients, though). I might not feel it personally but I'll give my patient my best to make them feel better. I'm not wasting time getting on the horn to the chaplain unless it's about that time the patient needs them.

But, if someone was a victim of abuse at the hands of religious authority, then, no. I can see the mere mention of it could cause extreme psychological discomfort for someone with that background.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 19, 2015

I think a lot of it right now is that certain Christians feel, at least in the US, that they are experiencing their rights being compromised d/t gay marriage finding the affirmation of SCOTUS. Some are bristling and a lot of hate is getting directed toward the non-religious, ally, and/or LGBT folk. This is causing a reaction in kind against all religious people as they get painted with the same broad brush that concludes they are all bigots.
It's ugly out here, right now. Some people are acting like it's the dang '70s again -- even people born 20-30 years later.

How are the rights of Christians being trampled upon by allowing everyone to marry the person of their dreams? If you don't believe in same sex marriage, don't marry a person of the same sex. It's not as if the danged liberals were rounding up helpless evangelical Christians and forcing them to marry a person of their own gender!

imenid37 · Jul 19, 2015

Big deal. Play along and make the patient and their family/friends happy. I promise it won't hurt you or suddenly make you want to change your entire life for an imaginary friend. All you're doing is providing comfort.

Exactly truthteller.

Here's another earth shattering idea..."Let me get ______ . She/he is very good at a time like this." This could be a co-worker, another nurse, tech, housekeeping, nursing sup,physician etc. You cannot always get the chaplain. Usually, there is a coworker you can collar in a pinch who is religious. I have worked with a lot of people who are ministers of something in their church (lay or even ordained) or just very devout. I will say it again. It is about making it happen for the patient.

It is true that there is dietary to prepare food and maintenance staff to fix the toilet, etc. However, in the inpatient world (which is where I have spent the past 30+ years as nurse and tech) nurses do pinch hit when these departments are not available. I seem to remember providing a snack or two on nights. It may have meant walking to another floor or paging the supervisor. If a toilet overflowed, I had to move the patient so they were somewhere where they had a working toilet and even put towels, etc on the floor to clean up when there were no housekeeping staff at night. The bottom line is you try to get your patient's needs met when they need it. Spirituality is something we assess and need to address. I am not the very pious religious type. There are pastors, etc that have visited my patients who totally creeped me out. However, would I stand silently with a patient who is a "bible thumper" if there baby was dying while they pray? Of course, with no hesitation. I don't know much about Islam, but would certainly offer a respectful moment of silence for a patient who is.

Rightfully, we have stopped punishing or passing judgement on people who have a same sex partner. Maybe we need to stop passing judgement on people who have faith we do not like or understand. You do not have to convert, You should show empathy and compassion. This is my opinion. I am sure others don't share it. I think you should think about it. One of the best things I have found about healthcare, is that it has put me with people I would not meet socially. This has broadened my horizons and taught me a lot (both good and bad) over the years.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Jul 19, 2015

How are the rights of Christians being trampled upon by allowing everyone to marry the person of their dreams? If you don't believe in same sex marriage, don't marry a person of the same sex. It's not as if the danged liberals were rounding up helpless evangelical Christians and forcing them to marry a person of their own gender!

Exactly. I could never fathom why that is -- however, the backlash once it was announced, even from people in my own cohort who are 10 years younger than me, is saddening in 2015. However, there is a reason I'm not super-out and waiving the pride flag to everyone in my class (among a few other reasons).

imenid37 · Jul 20, 2015

Ruby I wholeheartedly agree that many of the clergy are not worth much. Thankfully, it very truly is not my job to evaluate a patient's clergy or religious beliefs. (I hate to go in a room where someone has a tv minister on, BTW. I think they are usually real jerks). If I can get the chaplain or a patient's own minister or priest, I will. If not, it is not about me, so I will stand there in a time of crisis. I am not talking about someone who just wants to talk to the clergy or pray prior to a procedure tomorrow. I am talking about a person in an acute crisis. For me this has included a person who just found out they have had a fetal demise, SIDS death, or a birth where the child has suffered a catastrophic insult. Honestly, it has also included a patient who prayed for strength to get through labour, too. In the moment, she may feel like she is ready to break or even die. I suppose you gotta do what you gotta do, but I would not upset a person who wants support at a time like that by putting my own beliefs out there. I suppose my "non-religiousness" isn't that strong. I would say I do have spirituality and standing in solidarity, hoping for comfort for that person seems worthwhile to me. Though I may not be totally on board with the Lord, like some people, if the patient finds comfort from something, I am fine to go with it. It doesn't hurt me or my own beliefs. As far as religion goes, I do not think a universally "right" set of beliefs has been defined. It is an individual thing for the patient and the nurse. I won't change your mind, nor will you change mine.

Parakeet · Jul 21, 2015

BsumerRN

Back to you.....

Actually my sources were both secular and Christian. Mohamed borrowed from both Judaism and Christianity the pieces he wanted to make up his religion.

It was not just preachers I have heard this from. I heard from former Muslims who turned to Jesus Christ, none of them said that Allah was loving, or personal. Each one spoke about how they could just not know if they were good enough for their god.

The law of Moses has not been abolished, it has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Islam is not a continuation of the Bible.....because it was created by a man.

The God of the Bible is not the god of Islam. As for attributes.....loving, merciful....do you see those words in the actions of ISIS, who are murdering thousands of people who claim the name of Jesus? Granted, this is not to say that Christians in the past have never done such.....there were some Christian groups who were militant and who were either very misguided or only using Christianity to further their agenda.....there have been some "Christian wars" in history. However, a true believer in the LORD Jesus Christ will show love to their persecutors.

I have studied the history of the Russian Baptist church under communism.....as well as Christian churches under persecution today.......their persecutors and the people around them know them for their love, self-sacrifice for one another, compassion and love to those who seek to do them harm. That is the outcome of a true Christian. Islam does not have that. Amongst their own people, they are fighting and killing each other!

I can understand where you are coming from, but I have not just listened to people who have an emotional explosion. My sources have been eyewitnesses; some of the former Muslims I have heard were doing everything Islam called for, haj, eating halal, jihad....and they still never found peace and love until they came to Jesus Christ.

Thanks for interacting with me.

Parakeet · Jul 21, 2015

MunoRN,

Like I posted earlier, if you go back in history, Islam is only as old as A.D. 610. Islam and Judaism only share certain things in that Mohamed picked and chose what he liked from Judaism and wove it into his religion. Judaism goes back 4000 years.

If you read the Old Testament, the LORD God of the Bible is not the same as Allah in Islam. It is a shame that in the West, people are deceived to think that Islam can coexist with other religions. It is not possible. If you listen to former Muslims turned Christian, or even sometimes in the news, Muslims under the excuse of jihad, kill thousands of Christians, call them infidels, try to 'convert' them. They themselves do not consider Christianity equal; that would be treason against their religion.

Why is that necessary if Christianity is on par with Islam and the LORD Jehovah of the Bible equal to Allah? Should they not live in peace then, since everything is the same? The reason is, Islam and Christianity are as alike as darkness and light. There is no crossover.

For anyone reading this post.....as Islam was the subject brought up in an earlier post, that is why it is being mentioned here. I am not disregarding other religions apart from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it is just that these three were being discussed.

Thanks for reading. :)

BsumerRN · Jul 21, 2015

MunoRN,
Like I posted earlier, if you go back in history, Islam is only as old as A.D. 610. Islam and Judaism only share certain things in that Mohamed picked and chose what he liked from Judaism and wove it into his religion. Judaism goes back 4000 years.
If you read the Old Testament, the LORD God of the Bible is not the same as Allah in Islam. It is a shame that in the West, people are deceived to think that Islam can coexist with other religions. It is not possible. If you listen to former Muslims turned Christian, or even sometimes in the news, Muslims under the excuse of jihad, kill thousands of Christians, call them infidels, try to 'convert' them. They themselves do not consider Christianity equal; that would be treason against their religion.
Why is that necessary if Christianity is on par with Islam and the LORD Jehovah of the Bible equal to Allah? Should they not live in peace then, since everything is the same? The reason is, Islam and Christianity are as alike as darkness and light. There is no crossover.
For anyone reading this post.....as Islam was the subject brought up in an earlier post, that is why it is being mentioned here. I am not disregarding other religions apart from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it is just that these three were being discussed.
Thanks for reading. :)

You obviously believe what you want to believe. I understand that there are some "christian" churches who try to take away the legitimacy of Islam as an Abrahamic faith. The fact of the matter is you cannot disregard centuries worth of theological knowledge. Islam is no more man-made than Christianity or Judaism. Islam was revealed the the prophet Muhammad the same way holy scriptures were revealed to other prophets.

Obviously you are not Muslim and do not believe in Islamic theology but that still does not change it. Muslims do not sit around rewriting Chrisitany and Jewish theology because they have their own matters to attend to. According to Islam, finding truth in another faith or person, whether Judaism or Christianity,does not negate truth of Islam. If something is true it is true. Nothing changes that. To compare Christianity to light and Islam to darkness makes me wonder what you are so fearful of that you cannot even engage in dialogue. Furthermore, I do not understand the need to rewrite Islamic theology to fit some evangelical agenda. For the handful of Muslim converts to Christianity there are thousands of converts from Christianity to Islam. Worldwide conversion to Christianity is on a steep decline, it is not the case for Islam. By 2050 the population of Muslims is expected to equal that of Christians.

Why Muslims are the world's fastest-growing religious group | Pew Research Center

The tone of your posts is quite condescending. I hope you do not approach your patients who may have diverse viewpoints in such a manner. And by the way, Christians and Jews have lived in peace in Muslim lands for centuries. It was Ottomans who rescued innocent Muslims and Jews from persecution during the Spanish inquisition. For one to deny a relationship between the three religions would make wonder who is darkness. The current political climate and postcolonial turmoil is not representative of the three religions. Furthermore, Christians don't own the high moral ground as peace keepers in any sense.

Kooky Korky, BSN, RN · Jul 22, 2015

And this is exactly what the OP said s/he does ...

Trouble is chaplains and private ministers of a pt's faith are not always available. It can take hours for a chaplain or other religious professional or even lay person to arrive. I learned that when I was a pt. And I was at a religious hospital!

I personally do not believe in infant baptism, yet I was required, while a student, to learn how to baptize a baby, should it appear that the baby would die before a priest could get there to do the baptizing.

I didn't feel right about this, but I would never have refused to baptize a baby whose death appeared imminent. Maybe I was just too scared to protest or too uncertain about the rightness or propriety of this, but I would never have refused.

One time, I actually did a baptism, at a mom's request, when her baby was born with respiratory difficulty and the outcome didn't look good. I just figured her needs were more important than mine at that point. Right? Wrong? Do it again? Yes, I would do it again. Did it matter that I thought it was wrong? That is, did the baptism have the desired effect even though performed by someone who didn't agree with the theological correctness of it? I hope so.

Did my doing it diminish me somehow? Or was I right to help my patient? Or???