Modern medical practice collides with faith at life’s critical moments — in the delivery room as a premature infant struggles to take her first breath, at an aging patient’s bedside as his family weighs options for end-of-life care, and in a consulting room as an oncologist discusses treatment options when chemotherapy has failed to stop a woman’s breast cancer. In those moments, a doctor’s religious convictions may play as significant a role in the counsel they offer as their knowledge of the latest medical technology.
So is it appropriate for health care providers to allow their spiritual beliefs to shape the treatment they offer?
How are medical schools preparing future doctors, nurses, and therapists to understand patients’ religious convictions and incorporate these convictions into the healing process?
Dr. Farr Curlin, a featured presenter at next month’s “Reimagining Medicine” conference, considers these questions in this video What Does Religion Have to Do With Bioethics?
As you watch the video, consider:
When have your faith convictions shaped personal health care decisions, or decisions you’ve made on behalf of a loved one?
If you’re a health care provider, in what ways do your beliefs shape your daily practice? Where might your personal convictions conflict with commonly accepted treatment methods?
What steps do you take to fully understand a patients’ religious beliefs — and assess how these beliefs shape the decisions they make regarding medical treatment?
To hear more from Dr. Curlin, delve into his recommended reading list:
> The Christian Art of Dying: Learning from Jesus by Allen Verhay
> Bioethical Dilemmas: A Jewish Perspective by Rabbi J. David Bleich
> The Christian Virtues in Medical Practice by Edmund Pellegrino and David Thomas
> The Theology of Illness by Jean Claude Larchet
