Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity: First Draft
Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity
Abstract
During delivery of healthcare services, providers come across varied cultures and population of patients. Provision of health care requires the nurses to take care of their patients, not only for their medical needs but also for their spiritual and cultural needs. It means that a broad understanding of different cultures and faiths is required if one is to become a nurse or a healthcare provider. This paper analyzes two different religions, Christianity and Buddhism, along with the author’s own spiritual beliefs, and assesses their respective views regarding illness, prayer, medical care and healing. It is imperative that healthcare providers pay attention not only to the physical and medical needs of their patients, but also be thoughtful and accommodative to their spiritual needs and beliefs to ensure thorough healing and wellbeing.
Introduction
Nurses have to face different concerns while on duty because they serve many patients from varied locations and religions every day. Each community has its own ideals as regards to their day to day existence. The aspect of humanity is quite different for many, yet, majority of people agree that something higher and more supreme than humanity exists. The acceptance of this differs from one person to the other, an aspect that shows diverse ways of observing the concept of one’s life. Nurses ought to enrich their knowledge on such attributes because the source of the strength needed to define one’s existence comes from working on the innermost concentration of a peaceful coexistence. Understanding the reality and working on establishing such constructs, shows that there is a need to evaluate certain considerations that consistently shape the way people react to their surroundings. With time, whatever one considers as the basis of reality will define their interactions as well as create the divisions that emanate from working on individual convictions. This paper examines the role of religion in defining today’s changing society and how it influences the healthcare and nursing environment.
Reality
One important concentration that humans have in life regards the various presuppositions one carries from theological, social, or political constructs. Christians use these frameworks to interact and relate with the rest of the community (Poplin, 2013). Christians’ reality is concerned with the belief that God is the creator of everything and preserves the pleasure of determining right from wrong (Karr, 2013). God considers everything his creation and all should respect and follow him. Christians use the Bible as a way of learning what God wants of them and the scriptures act as a guide when making such choices.
According to Buddhists, the higher being or God is not part of their belief. Instead, they believe in the supreme state or Nirvana. It provides them with the ability to realize that they can be better by aspiring to follow a state considered finite and perfect. In a similar manner, all other religions have similar beliefs regarding their supreme God, and one of the differences between Buddhists and Christians is based on the concept of the Supreme Being (Naugle, 2002). Nonetheless, the two religions believe in something bigger than them. To both religions, the Supreme Being does control the events of everything happening across the world. It creates a certain semblance to the descriptions considered as vibrations, consciousness, and essence. All these help people decipher the meaning of reality (Naugle, 2002).
Matter
Christians understand that God created everything on earth and in the heavens. All creation is dependent on him for existence. Everything considered as the matter has a form that will eventually come to an end. Though he was the creator, God is beyond space and time. He is distinct from all that is created. Nonetheless, matter is real and good and should be used to worship God.
Amongst the Buddhists, the world is some sort of fantasy that requires an understanding of the lacking realness within. The important thing for a person is to live a life that they are proud of, but not one that pegs their ability to relate to others on worldly views or things (Naugle, 2002). As a result, things should not be valued more than personal comfort and needs. People need to value what they consider as the basis of their existence. Nurses treating such patients need to understand their role when it comes to establishing their ventures. An integral bit of such consideration is based on the ability to work on personal growth rather than material possessions.
Humans
Christians consider humans as a creation of God in his image. These humans have self-consciousness, intelligence, spiritual abilities, moral accountability and the freedom to make their choices. They are able to work on a relationship that will create a better essence for connecting with God from all positions (Karr, 2013). According to God’s plan, humans should enjoy a fellowship with him both on earth and through eternity. He used Jesus Christ as a means of restoring that fellowship by looking at him as an atonement sacrifice (Sire, 2011).
The Buddhists, on the other hand, downplay individual personalities and believe that all humans ought to be concerned with the unity of the Supreme Being. Everyone needs to help the other grow in all aspects as a way of making that connection. All humans play a vital role in meeting such concerns and assisting others to know God and establish such consideration.
Meaning/Death
Christians take the world to be an important transition to eternity. Basic Christian teaching shows that there is life after death and that the material bodies will decompose but the soul of every human will go to a better place thereafter. Christ’s resurrected enough proof for the Christians that there was more after death (Sire, 2011).
The Buddhists, however, believe that life is a continuous cycle. Once one dies, he or she is reborn. Everyone has to repay the consequences of behaviors committed in the previous life. Many consider this as karma (Sire, 2011). The only way of becoming righteous and exercising such abilities is based on the ability to define higher being and state of consciousness in life. By acquiring this, one becomes a better person and can advance to being righteous (Poplin, 2013).
How People Know Things
Christians believe that the scriptures provide them with the needed intelligence. God has given humans intelligence and an ability to define what is right and wrong the morality of such considerations takes into account the ability to make the right choices, an aspect that has been granted to man since time immemorial (Sire, 2004).
According to the Buddhists, the changes that happen across the world show a basis of delivering what is important when making such cases are noted (Sire, 2004). Having time to look deep within is important because it creates a change to develop a new way of assisting others to make the right decisions (Karr, 2013). The ultimate basis of knowing is being conscious about what is happening.
Morality
According to Christians, knowing what is right or wrong is very crucial for existence. God is perfect and he is the basis of everything that is right in the world. As a way of addressing the diminishing qualities of humanness, God ensured that he created people with the qualities of goodness and morality. He knew that with the ability to make the right choices, the growth of the common society was only ideal if the basis of moral natures controls such developments (Coseru, 2015).
Buddhists consider morality as an ignorance of the nature of reality. People need enlightenment rather than forcing them to repent. Working on enlightenment ensures that more people can objectively stand in righteousness and uphold morality as a basis of responding to issues in their midst (Sire, 2004). Humans have good and bad sides. The secret is to learn to cultivate the better side more compared to the other.
History
Christianity takes precedence from the stories that emanate from handling the changing character of God’s work. It is important to establish the essence of such traditions and histories because God used them as a basis for letting humans know what he intended to do or what he had done in the past (Sire, 2004). The essential chronicles kept by the kings were critical in defining the changing times and the events that characterized their eras. Christians learned from this as a way of knowing what to do in their eras as well. God was the beginning of everything in the world, and everything on earth has its existent tied to Him (Karr, 2013).
Buddhists have different thoughts altogether. They believe that history is a cycle that comes from birth to death. For this case, history has very little meaning to them (Naugle, 2002). They feel that the basis of such individual purposes should train one to live a better and make the right changes as part of delivering the intended change in one’s life. Natural occurrences happen but they are meant to help the person grow and be a better person. Enlightenment is the only way of breaking various barriers in the area of such bad cycles.
Hinging on their beliefs, Christians place emphasis on a number of considerations that nurses ought to keep in mind. For the Christian Catholics, the Sacrament and the blessing offered by their priests are of utmost Importance, particularly before they undergo a surgery or whenever they perceive their life to be at risk. The patients may sometimes request for Sacrament. Secondly, if the Catholic patient is an infant, the parents may request for baptism by a Catholic Priest or any other person with good intention.
Christian Catholic patients may also ask for the “Eucharist” which is their Holy Communion, which is taken by mouth, before a surgery is undertaken. Another consideration that health care providers should keep in mind is that some Catholic patients may carry with them sacred objects. They include a crucifix known as the Rosary, a scapula, or a medal. In the case that patients ask to be allowed to keep such objects, the medical staff should let them keep them as long as the objects have no adverse effects on their health.
For Protestants the health care providers should firstly consider that some patients may pray energetically and loudly, sometimes by speaking I tongues. In such cases the medical staff can close their doors so as to prevent the noise from disturbing other patients. They may also sometimes ask for other Protestants for example from their church to join them in their hospital room for prayer. This should not be a problem as so long as it’s done during the hospital visiting hours and does not disturb the other patients.
For Buddhist patients, meditation is considered to be vital as they believe in having peace in times of crisis. Some patients may also express concern in social matters such as treatment by medical staff of the opposite gender. For some Buddhists, their diets are strictly vegetarian and thus even their medication should not contain animal products. Before using medications such as anesthetics and painkillers, the medical team may need to consult with the patients or their families as some attribute these medications with suffering. Buddhists place emphasis on alertness and consciousness of the mind. In some instances, Buddhist patients may carry with them religious objects like a string of beads that they use in prayer. They may also wish to have a picture of Buddha hang in their hospital rooms. During prayer, the Buddhists may pray out loud. Such can be handled by striking a compromise with the patients or by closing their hospital doors to give them their privacy. The medical staff should minimize disruptions during meditation in the case where the patient is approaching their death.
The researcher, being a Christian believes that recognizing the patient’s spiritual wishes enhances their comfort and safety. Encouraging and attending to the patient’s divine needs enhances their healing both in the flesh and emotionally. In the Old Testament, God promises that he is the healer (The Holy Bible, Exodus. 15.26). Christianity explains how God, the maker, sustains the entire universe and its inhabitants in the state that He first created them. Christian practice does not in any way encourage intrusion of any personal space, therefore during treatment patients’ decisions regarding their health are left for them and their families
References
Bible, B. (2015). Exodus 15:26. The Holy Bible The Authorized King James Version. Century Publishing.
Coseru, C. (2015). Perceiving reality: Consciousness, intentionality, and cognition in Buddhist philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Karr, A. (2013). Contemplating reality: A practitioner's guide to the view in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. New York: Shambhala Publications.
Naugle, D. K. (2002). Worldview: The history of a concept. Boston, MA: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
Poplin, M. (2013). Is reality secular?: Testing the assumptions of four global worldviews. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press.
Sire, J. W. (2011). The Universe next door. Chicago: ReadHowYouWant.com.
Sire, J.W. (2004). Naming the elephant: Worldview as concept. Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity Press.
