Faith Matters for April 12, 2008
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Patients should have their spiritual as well as physical needs met while in the hospital.
“We have to treat people’s spiritual part,” said Betsy Wilks, a licensed clinical social worker of Baton Rouge General Medical Center. “People’s spirituality is part of their wellness.”
Wilks helped coordinate a series of meetings last month that featured representatives from different religious groups. Students in the hospital’s 3-year residency program and others were told about the best ways to deal with patients who are Jehovah’s Witnesses or Buddhists.
“It’s important to see patients not just as patients but as a person, and you have to understand what the person thinks and what the person believes,” said Dr. Ky Nguyen, who represented Buddhists.
George Moore represented the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“We provide information for doctors to be able to treat our patients,” Moore said.
Wilks said the series of meetings is the second in three years for the hospital. She said the hospital wants to provide the series every three years for each graduating class “to increase cultural competencies for all residents about people’s spirituality.”
In the fall, Wilks plans meetings to address other religious affiliations such as Jews, Catholics and several Protestant groups.
“I think the residents have responded well,” Wilks said. “They like to have more information about the patients they are going to be serving. And the hospital has responded well.”
Moore said the biggest issue Jehovah’s Witnesses have to address is the topic of blood transfusions.
“We feel that the Bible prohibits the taking of blood in the body,” Moore said.
Moore based his belief on two passages of Scripture.
The first is Genesis 9:6, which in the King James Version reads: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made the man.”
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