What Should Physicians and Chaplains Do When a Patient Believes God Wants Him to Suffer

Bibliographic Data

ID15744903
AuthorsBenjamin W Frush (0000-0003-1389-427X, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, corresponding author), John Brewer Eberly (0000-0002-9815-6243, University of South Carolina), Farr A Curlin (Duke University)
Year2018
Volume20
Issue7
Pages613-620
Publication date2018-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe AMA Journal of Ethic (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2376-6980 • E-ISSN: 2376-6980
PublisherAmerican Medical Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1001/amajethics.2018.613
PMID30007021
OpenAlexW2810528948
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited1

When physicians encounter a patient who gives religious reasons for wanting to suffer, physicians should maintain their commitment to the patient's health while making room for religiously informed understandings of suffering and respecting the patient's authority to refuse medically indicated interventions. Respecting the patient can include challenging the patient's reasoning, and physicians can decline to participate in interventions that they believe contradict their professional commitments. Chaplains likewise should both support and possibly respectfully challenge a patient in instances that involve desire to suffer for religious reasons, and physicians should draw on chaplains' expertise in these situations to attend to the patient's spiritual concerns. Finally, conversations involving spiritual and existential suffering might include members of the patient's religious community when the patient is open to this option

Existentialism · Political science · Psychological intervention · Psychotherapist · Cultural Competency in Health Care · Law · Medicine · Nursing · Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social Psychology

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