Would You Pray if your Patient asked?

Nurses General Nursing

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If a patient asked you to pray with or for them at the bedside, would you?

I had this discussion with some other nurses and the responses were interesting. Some said they would have no problem, others said it was too personal a request for a patient to ask, and others said they would call the chaplain as they felt it is a chaplain function only.

I witnessed one occurence where a patient asked his nurse to pray with him. Without hesistation, she took his hand and prayed a very nice non-denominational prayer. I realize not everyone can or might not want to do this, but it really brought solace to that patient.

Your thoughts?

Originally posted by Susy K

Agnes,

Isn't God (with a capital G, denoting the difference) usually a Christian diety? The others you mentioned are more so gods and goddesses, not God "proper," as in Greek gods, etc.

God is also the deity of the Jewish faith, and they are not christians. Allah is translated to god too I think. I think the Chinese have one God also (forget the name).

Christians don't hold the monopoly on God in the world.

And in answer to the topic of the thread:

As for praying with a patient, I would if they asked me too. I would hope that they would be leading though, and would also offer to call someone (chaplain, etc) for them. It just would be the RIGHT thing to do for the patient and that is why I am there, to do the right thing for them.

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Specializes in LDRP; Education.

My statement was more so that to ASSUME that if you mention the term god you are covering all aspects of the religions, you may be entirely incorrect.

Sure, Allah is a "god" of sorts, but he is referred to as such, not God as Christians (and yes, sorry for leaving out Jews in my initial post) and Jews refer to Him.

If I were praying to Allah, and you called Allah "God," I think I might have to correct you.

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Originally posted by Susy K

My statement was more so that to ASSUME that if you mention the term god you are covering all aspects of the religions, you may be entirely incorrect.

Sure, Allah is a "god" of sorts, but he is referred to as such, not God as Christians (and yes, sorry for leaving out Jews in my initial post) and Jews refer to Him.

If I were praying to Allah, and you called Allah "God," I think I might have to correct you.

I guess I do need to learn more about various religions. I think it would be very helpful to know this because to many patients their religion is very important to them and their health beliefs. How could I treat them holistically without knowing more about their basic beliefs and spritual needs? Did you nurses have some instruction in class on this? I know on our careplans we must know what religion they are, we lose a point if we don't bother to find out. So I can see that they consider this important, but I don't know if they will be teaching us more on it.

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Good point, Val. I had no clue what Wiccan was (still don't really have a good idea) until I came on this board.

I did make the mistake of asking clergy what Wicca was and I won't even go into what their reply was. I'll just say I determined after their answer it was something I was going to have to research in an unbiased way! :chuckle

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Actually, "Allah" IS the same thing as God. The most user-friendly article you'll ever read on the subject: Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Islam

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Spirituality is universal. Different faith traditions may address their Supreme Being as God, Allah, Jehovah, Earth Goddess or whatever; the whole point is to reach out to something or Someone greater than ourselves, who cares about us and looks after us. I'm a "non-practicing" Catholic who believes in a personal God, but I've seen too much of His greatness to believe that He can ever be confined to any one church or religion. I believe all faiths have something to offer humanity, thus I have never felt uncomfortable praying with patients of any religious persuasion. In the wake of 9/11, at an interfaith candlelight vigil for the victims, I found myself standing next to the leader of our local Muslim community; he was there, as the other 300+ people were there, to remember the lost and to pray for our nation's healing. I realized once again how in God's eyes, we all really are the same, and that goes for patients too---they need the assurance that someone, somewhere, loves them and will protect them from harm. I don't judge nurses who are uncomfortable with praying for/with their patients, but the times I've done so have created some of my own most memorable moments as a nurse.

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I would definitely pray with or for them if they asked.

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Originally posted by Susy K

Agnes,

Isn't God (with a capital G, denoting the difference) usually a Christian diety? The others you mentioned are more so gods and goddesses, not God "proper," as in Greek gods, etc.

The following come from Catholic study. God is spelled with a capital G. when it denotes the "one true God" otherwise it is spelled with a lower case g. indicating these pagan gods are not really God. Christians believe the only God is the one that Chrisitans and Jews recognize.

If you look in the literature of pagan (non Jedeo/Christian) faiths they all spell God and Goddess and their names with capital letters.

god therefore refers to a non recognized God. Christians spell gods and goddess because they do not recognize more than one God and do not recognize a goddess.

I am open to recognizing any representation of the deity simply because I do not know all the answers when it comes to this issue. I suspect any God that exists is pretty big and all encoupasing. I suspect that as many religions suggest the name of the diety is unspeakable. I suspect we have created an immage (immages) of God that we can relate to. Not the other way around.

Catholics see God as Father Son and Holy Spririt, in one person. Some prostant denominations argue that that is polytheism and therefore God can only be one of these.

Catholicism argues that these are different names, different sides of one God.

I therefore argue that the various names of Gods are recognizing and acknowledging different sides of God. I see God as multifacited, having a complex nature therefore recognizing those various sides is not out of line. Jesus is one side the Father is another. The Goddess is another; the Catholic Church frequently refers to the feminine side of God. etc.

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The muslim faith just as the Christian faith come from the Jewish faith.

Muslims were Jews. This particular group of Jews followed the profit Mohamad.

Christians followed the profit who was declaird the son of God, Jesus.

Muslims, Christians and Jews are different aspects of the same base religion. Looking at their origins Muslims have much in common with Christians.

This is why it is Jews, Christians and Muslims who fight with each other. They all have the same parent religion. It is a kind of sibling rivalry.

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Some one on this list asked if we were taught much abou this in Nursing Classes.

NO. This is an arguement for an extensive broad liberal arts education.

There is frequently an arguement made that we as nurses don't need non nursing courses to do our job that study of literature or history, or art etc contribute nothing to nurising.

I draw on art, culture, history, philosophy, all the humananities, and studies of religion in the comments that I have made here.

But that is another thread.

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yes.

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Absolutely. I pray for them when they don't ask. I couldn't imagine someone turning ME down if I were sick and asking for a prayer. How sad and disappointing if someone said no.

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