Prayer and patient care.

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Do you ever pray with or for your patients?

Specializes in Med Surg/Tele/ER.

Yes, I do it all the time. I am more than happy to pray with them when asked. Monday I had a pt that I just knew was dying.....I stayed in his room most of the night, & prayed silently while I held his hand. I came in Tue. night to find out he had died at ~ 10 that morning. I also pray before my shift starts.

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Specializes in Cardiac, ER.

I frequently pray for my pts and thier loved ones, and will pray with anyone who asks. I've had some real interesting and very theraputic chats with the Lord on my 40 min drive home in the morning,....works better than ambien ever did!!;)

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Specializes in ED.
Do you ever pray with or for your patients?

I pray with them if they ask and if they don't I still pray silently for them. This past weekend a woman asked for us to pray that I get her IV in her lol, so I did, and would have anyway if I thought it would be a hard stick.

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I do not go to church and never have, but I believe in God. I work in a Catholic based nursing home (even though i'm not Catholic) and when the time is needed, I will pray with a family member or over a dying patient to ease their minds. I have also been blessed with holy water more times than i can count while dropping residents off in church.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Yes, if they ask me to. I don't ask if i can.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Cardiac.
So do I, Leslie. You'd think that as a Catholic I'd be great at formal prayer, but at times of crisis or thanksgiving, I forget every prayer I know and just talk to the Lord as if He were sitting in the La-Z-Boy across the living room from mine. And usually, nobody knows it but us.;)

Because I'm a Catholic formal prayer doesn't bother me much. For example when a priest is in the room anointing an unconscious pt. I'll do the "Amen"s at the appropriate time.

I have trouble listening to the various sorts of informal prayer like on hears in a lot of Protestant and some of the charismatic Catholic groups. The ones where everyone holds hands and the priest or minister or someone just prays whatever's on their mind. I think one's prayers to God are very private, so listening to those informal prayers is voyeuristic, like listening to two lovers talking.

The one time I encountered an actual prayer circle was a prehospital emergency so I just got inside the circle and worked on the patient. I figured the prayers for the patient's recovery were also a prayer for me to do my job well.

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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.
This sounds just like me.

I had to accompany a patient to church recently on a private duty case. When I protested the supervisor said if I chose to wait until church services were over I had to dock the time I waited outside.

So I went. It was a Pentecostal church. They were so wild I actually had to excuse myself to the bathroom so I could laugh after a woman caught her foot in the microphone cord when she was jumping around in a frenzy and tripped.

You's have to have been there.

Oh, believe me, I do understand because I have been there! I saw a service so crazy once - this man 'passed out' on stage. But before he fully 'went out' he acted like he was being electrocuted, jerking all over the place.

A small part of me was afraid he had a real seizure. After he fully 'went out' he went down to ground and stayed flat on his back on the stage for 1/2 of the sermon. The pastor stepped around him.

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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

With the various religious threads here on this board in mind, I asked my good friend who's a hospice social worker about what she does when patients ask her about anything related to God and faith.

She said surprisingly, it doesn't come up much. She said she has never prayed with a single patient in her 20 plus years of being a LCSW in hospice. She said she always makes arrangements at the intake regarding their spiritual needs, which clergy to contact (if any) etc.

Other than that, she said "once in a blue moon" (her words) a patient will be acutely distressed and ask her about god or faith. She just always redirects it back to them and what they think, they believe, etc. She has attended quite a few deaths as well as the usual intake work.

So I find it puzzling that so many here describe this issue coming up very much at all. I wonder if this does vary so much by geography.

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multi, the relationship between a pt and the sw is not as potentially intimate as the relationship between a pt and his/her nurse.

and yes, geography can/does make a difference, also.

but it is often through the ongoing relationship betw pt/nurse, that they will share their innermost fears and anxieties.

our sw is not surprised to hear of pts verbalized concerns to their nurses.

she understands the bonds that many of us develop.

leslie

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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

Good point, leslie. I hadn't considered that the social workers might not get as intimate. In fact, for some odd reason, I was thinking the opposite. I'm not sure why I did that.

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Well here it is 0254 and the ER has emptied out so I have a minute to go to allnurses.com.

I have never seen nurse/prayer/interaction charted. Imagine, "prayed with patient. patient expressed reduced anxiety and a willingness to ambulate postoperatively" or "meditated x 5 min. with patient focusing on flowers at bedside. pt. calmer and pain level has come down to 2/10."

Or, "Prayed with parents for their dying infant. Parents expressed ablility to let infant son 'go' now." (That is the cliff note version of a real story we recieved. I'm thinking the prayer part isn't charted. But I don't know for sure.) So, what's up with that? Why is spiritual nursing practice left up to the nuns and parish nurses when so much prayer is going on? If you do pray and have a story that touched your heart would you please share it? Prayer works. Thanks so much. WF

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Specializes in ICU/CCU & MEDSURG.

Love The Idea. It Has Never Occurred To Me To Chart When I Pray With A Patient.

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