2008-01-07 Advice for healthcare professionals

This book starts by offering lots of statistics that show that those with some kind of religious or spiritual faith are usually healthier, longer lived and more able to cope with their illnesses; it seemed that the first lesson to learn from this book was that every patient should Get Religion Now. The author continued by discussing the role of the healthcare professional in providing spiritual care to the patient, how to take a 'spiritual history' (required by law in the US), whether or not to pray with the patient, the potential difficulties that a spirituality can cause (for example some may see illness or sickness as a sign that their god has turned from them), the work of chaplains and how different parts of the healthcare system (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, mental health professionals etc) might approach a patient's spirituality differently. He concludes with a model course curriculum to train healthcare professionals in taking a spiritual history and then an overview of the different beliefs of various religions and denominations as they affect the patient's healthcare choices.

As an American book there are some difficulties in incorporating its message here in the UK. For example, our medical set-ups are very different, particularly in terms of the time that healthcare professionals can spend with patients. The assumption in the book is also that the vast majority of patients and healthcare professionals have a religious faith and this isn't the case here. Interestingly this book deals with overall 'spirituality' and incorporates Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism and therefore its message is generally a non-specific 'faith' or 'belief' one without much differentiation as to the effect on the patient. The writing style was very dry and rather unengaging and there was quite a lot of repetition in the book but overall it is a useful contribution to the debate, despite its limitations.