Athiests in EMS

[Aidey]

...I feel that honesty is at the core of who I am and to pray with someone when I don't believe in a listening higher power is lying both to the patient and to myself.

I agree that honesty is very important, my issue more stems from the fact I don't know those (or any other) prayers! lol. If I am ever asked to baptize a baby I am screwed.

I would however be respectful if they chose to pray and if possible stop interventions long enough to permit that moment. If they were too critical though, I can not and will not stop for anything. Their life would be in my hands at that point and I become responsible.

This is pretty much how I operate also. I've picked up patients several times from churches/religious events and have accommodated prayer requests. The only time I've had to veto was while getting ready to do a 12 lead they started splashing the patient with holy water.

I'd offer to ask for the hospital chaplain during my call-in if the patient wanted it, especially if they were critical. Its also certainly not wrong to decline to pray with a patient if your religious beliefs don't line up with your patient's.

In critical patients that really isn't necessary here becuase the chaplain automatically responds to most of the critical situations. Traumas, strokes, MIs etc. They usually track us down and ask about family/friends, or they take over with family/friends that are already at the hospital.

 

[8jimi8]

Another atheist here, and I agree. I also think the converse is true, a providers religion should not matter to the patient. This means if I decline to say Hail Marys or the Lord's Prayer with you, and instead offer to contact the hospital chaplain when we get there, please accept that answer and move on.

Aidey, please know that I'm not intending an offensive tone.

Regarding your nonbelief, why is it so abhorrent to you to say a few meaningless words? It can provide considerable relief of anxiety for the patient.

It's like singing happy birthday. It's not really your birthday, but we're celebrating... So you sing!

 

[Aidey]

The difference is that I know the words to Happy Birthday. I don't know the Lord's Prayer or Hail Mary.

 

[fma08]

Aidey, please know that I'm not intending an offensive tone.

Regarding your nonbelief, why is it so abhorrent to you to say a few meaningless words? It can provide considerable relief of anxiety for the patient.

It's like singing happy birthday. It's not really your birthday, but we're celebrating... So you sing!

Also, they're not meaningless to the patient.

 

[usafmedic45]

Nothing you said is based on reasoned approach but rather out of a state of depression.

Right, and there is few things more dangerous than making life-altering decisions based upon the effects of mental illness.

 

[Sassafras]

Aidey, please know that I'm not intending an offensive tone.

Regarding your nonbelief, why is it so abhorrent to you to say a few meaningless words? It can provide considerable relief of anxiety for the patient.

It's like singing happy birthday. It's not really your birthday, but we're celebrating... So you sing!

she didn't say it was abhorrent simply asked for mutual respect. But why ask someone to say something simply because it is meaningless to them. The implication of prayer is that you believe it will work or help. Why would I lie to my patients? I believe dishonesty is more detrimental to them as they need to be able to trust me to tell them the truth about their situation. Praying as though I believe a deity will help them is not being truthful.

 

[usafmedic45]

Why would I lie to my patients? I believe dishonesty is more detrimental to them as they need to be able to trust me to tell them the truth about their situation.

The nice thing about lying about having faith is that they can't prove it one way or another. It's called plausible deniability.

 

[281mustang]

I was raised Christian but am now Agnostic. Despite the fact that I strongly dislike religion and it's affect on the world I try to "go with the flow" as much as possible when confronted with it.

I have never been placed in that scenario but I would be more than happy to take the patient's hand and participate in a moment of silence if their current condition allowed. I could not envision myself actively participating in the prayer itself though.

 

[8jimi8]

she didn't say it was abhorrent simply asked for mutual respect. But why ask someone to say something simply because it is meaningless to them. The implication of prayer is that you believe it will work or help. Why would I lie to my patients? I believe dishonesty is more detrimental to them as they need to be able to trust me to tell them the truth about their situation. Praying as though I believe a deity will help them is not being truthful.

how is it a lie? How is this going to harm the patient? How are they going to know you dont believe?

And if you don't believe in it, again, I must ask why is it so hard to say some meaningless words (notice i don't care how meaningful they are to the patient) if it could be an intervention that gives someone the will to continue living.

 

[Aidey]

Ok, I'm going to say this one more time. I do not know the words to those prayers! If a patient wants a silent prayer I can hold their hand and close my eyes and use the time to think of what I'm going to do next, generally no biggie. My example stemmed from a specific call where a patient asked me to say a Hail Mary for him, and I tried to decline, and I finally had to tell him I didn't know it, which sent the whole situation down hill. We rolled into the ER with the calling me a heathen and saying my soul was doomed.

 

[8jimi8]

Ok, I'm going to say this one more time. I do not know the words to those prayers! If a patient wants a silent prayer I can hold their hand and close my eyes and use the time to think of what I'm going to do next, generally no biggie. My example stemmed from a specific call where a patient asked me to say a Hail Mary for him, and I tried to decline, and I finally had to tell him I didn't know it, which sent the whole situation down hill. We rolled into the ER with the calling me a heathen and saying my soul was doomed.

i reread your previous post and saw that you do accommodate prayer requests that is more what i meant, i wasnt implying that you should learn a hail mary. Sorry i wasnt picking at you
Aidey

 

[Asimurk]

Ok, I'm going to say this one more time. I do not know the words to those prayers! If a patient wants a silent prayer I can hold their hand and close my eyes and use the time to think of what I'm going to do next, generally no biggie. My example stemmed from a specific call where a patient asked me to say a Hail Mary for him, and I tried to decline, and I finally had to tell him I didn't know it, which sent the whole situation down hill. We rolled into the ER with the calling me a heathen and saying my soul was doomed.

A Catholic I know tried to recite Hail Mary to me, and started, then I thought I had finished, it, but it ended up being Our Father. Prayers, hopes, wishes, click your heels three times, same thing, same lack of effect on anything other than emotion.

 

[Sassafras]

how is it a lie? How is this going to harm the patient? How are they going to know you dont believe?

And if you don't believe in it, again, I must ask why is it so hard to say some meaningless words (notice i don't care how meaningful they are to the patient) if it could be an intervention that gives someone the will to continue living.

There is much more I can do for a patient and much more I could say to them that would give them the will to live without reverting to lying. I do not lie. And asking me to do so because you happen to believe it will be good to break one of the ten commandments for a patient seems a bit of an oxymoron don't you think?

I come from a very rough religious background filled with hypocracy, pain, and watching people use religion to harm others repeatedly. I will never lie about who I am, because being dishonest regardless of the reason, is firstly harmful to me. Being dishonest with a patient brings no benefit to my patient at all. I do not believe prayer will help them, I will not waste my time on it. Former theology degree here. Lots of unanswered prayers, and really it's a bit silly to expect the unseen being in the sky to intervene on behalf of some of the richest people in the world when that being won't intervene for the countless humans in poverty stricken nations dying of starvation, malnutrition and the like, being opressed, violated and murdered by their fellow human beings.

I will do everything within my power to help them, but prayer is not one of those things. And it's hypocrytical to expect me to be untrue to myself when most major religions believe that lying will send you to someplace horrid when you die.

 

[firetender]

It doesn't matter what YOU believe!

What is it you DO in the back of an ambulance anyway?

Do you administer drugs and therapies that actually CHANGE the person?

Or do you offer adjuncts that help the person's own bodily defense systems come in to play in opposition to impending death?

If you think you're interposing something from without upon the patient, you're not. You're opening a doorway so that the person's OWN defenses can weather the traumatic event. Physiologically, that's how it works. If they are bound for death, NOTHING you can do will stop it. If they're not, then something you have may help.

If you are not employing your patients' own defense mechanisms and seeking ways to strengthen them then you are depriving yourself of not only one of your most potent tools, but of being a vehicle through which random miracles occur; regardless of your own beliefs.

(Whom amongst the agnostics and atheists have NOT experienced miracles; stuff happening that all known Science or/and everyone/everything else says can't?)

So what that leaves me with is the importance to recognize that working WITH what is means working with the patient exactly where they are at, and if that means tuning in to their wave length and being present for them to USE you as a vehicle to connect with their own defense mechanisms, then, as long as it doesn't interfere with the therapies you are trained to use as well, for Whoever's sake (including your own) BE THERE FOR THEM!

Ultimately, that's one more tool to utilize in your Bag of Tricks that you can use without a smidgen of being untrue to yourself. If you recognize that you are an agent of healing and that may include providing solace which may then produce the endorphins necessary to help the patient defend him/herself -- regardless of where it comes from -- then that's what you deliver.

 

[HotelCo]

(Whom amongst the agnostics and atheists have NOT experienced miracles; stuff happening that all known Science or/and everyone/everything else says can't?)

Just because science can't currently explain it, doesn't mean it's unexplainable. It certainly doesn't mean it's the work of a supernatural being.

I echo what others have said here, and on other threads. When a patient asks me to pray with them, I tell them I'll be more than happy to sit there with them while they pray.

When asked about my beliefs, I tell them. I've never had a patient that suddenly took a turn for the worse because I chose not to lie to them about my beliefs.

 

[8jimi8]

Thanks Firetender, You got the point i was trying to make and expressed it much better than I did.

 

[firetender]

Except I guess it doesn't work like that in real life. I went by a church and the doors were locked. I guess God wasn't home. I had to call and make an appointment. I'm going tomorrow, I'll check back here and let you know if I've found the path to enlightenment or not...

The way it works is you put out a Call. That's what you did right here. Maybe that's God enough!

Do not give a Damn where the Response comes from. Don't analyze it, try to make it right or wrong, just listen first, check in with the deepest part of yourself, and you will know what to do.

Alcoholics Anonymous is actually a guide to Spirituality in that in the Twelve Steps, only the first mentions alcohol; something like "We admitted we were alcoholic and that our lives had become unmanageable."

Beyond that it only refers to "The Higher Power of our understanding." Pick your God, they don't care!

The magic

I was deeply involved in 12-Step programs (of which there are many INCLUDING Co-dependents Anonymous which can include most anything that keeps you out of the present moment and into endless cycling or repetition of self-destructive behavior) for about 15 years and I didn't have to adopt anyone's way of thinking.

What happened was, for a couple buck donation each "meeting" I got to sit with other people who were working out their ca-ca in the presence of others on a regular basis. To be honest, during those first few months I went to meetings EVERY day for support until I felt strong enough to slow it down; but the gig is, it was always there within a day's wait, I didn't need to have insurance and for at least a few minutes each day I'd be able to express my "truth" without judgment or interference. Through them, I got to hear myself and tap in to the wisdom that was already there. At the same time, the others were reflections of parts of myself I was avoiding or unaware of. You could say I saw God AND myself through them.

These are the building blocks of recovery.

What does this have to do with EMS and us? There's a guy in this thread hurting and he's getting little support. Ramp it up you selfish Schmucks!

 

[Asimurk]

(Whom amongst the agnostics and atheists have NOT experienced miracles; stuff happening that all known Science or/and everyone/everything else says can't?)

You can't see it, but my hand is in the air.

Someone once said I was a miracle baby because I was the only child to make it out of my mother's womb, after she had already had five miscarriages. So one more and death, and I can become a saint, right?

 

[HotelCo]

Transported a priest the other day, and the conversation naturally turned to religion. Long story short, I explained why I don't believe in God, and he explained why he did.

It was a non-event, but I thought I'd share anyway.