These Professionals Should Consider Religious Backgrounds

Cultural competence in a medical setting means providing adequate care that prioritizes the whole person over their medical condition. Considering a person’s religious background is important in many fields and specialties. Discover four medical professionals that benefit the most from cultural competency. 

Cultural Competence in Medical Care

Cultural competence is the ability to understand and respect your patient’s beliefs, values and history. It’s a lifelong process that requires self-assessment and continuous cultural education. A culturally competent medical professional is better able to diagnose and give appropriate treatment while considering their patient’s background. 

Here are some of the benefits of cultural competence: 

• Improves interpersonal interactions and bedside manner. 
• Builds trust between patient and doctor. 
• Reduces bias that leads to inaccurate diagnosis and treatment
• Increase the chances of a patient’s willingness to comply with your recommendations.
• Reduces care disparities.  

In addition to the benefits for you as a professional, cultural competence benefits your patients immensely and can be a positive contributing factor to healing. The body, mind and soul connection have a part to play in health care. Research shows that religious people may have better immune function than those who don’t practice religion.  When you consider your patient’s religious background, it also helps them cope with anxiety about their health challenges.  

Religion and spirituality are major factors when patients seek care. Since religion is part of an individual’s lifestyle, patients will turn to their religious beliefs when making medical decisions. Certain aspects can affect their willingness to accept treatment when it comes to diet, medicines that contain animal products, modesty, surgery and even the preferred gender of a health professional. 

That’s why it’s essential for medical professionals to acknowledge, respect and accommodate the spiritual lives of their patients, especially for major procedures and treatments. 

Which Professionals Benefit The Most? 

While healthcare services in general should take a ‘whole’ person approach, here are some of the professionals that will benefit most from considering their patient’s religious background. You ensure a relationship of trust between you and your patient and can provide care that will be beneficial physically, emotionally and mentally. 

1. Surgeons 

In addition to essential factors like health history, anesthesia options and diet changes, there are some factors surgeons may have to consider when treating religious patients. 

For example, the Amish view the heart as the soul of the body, so heart transplants are prohibited and heart surgery is discouraged. Although members are generally allowed to seek medical attention, they may hesitate and are likely to try prayer, herbal remedies and other natural antidotes before seeking professional medical help. 

According to Ahimsa Law in the Hindu religion, the use of human tissue or animal products for skin grafts is prohibited. In some cases, a patient can receive human organs and tissue.

In the Jewish religion, scheduling surgery on a Friday is discouraged because it interferes with Shabbos, or the day of rest. Anything that can disrupt someone’s observance of Shabbos or causes people suffering, like family members or even doctors, should be scheduled at another time. Jewish individuals may insist that the surgery happens earlier in the week — preferably a Monday or a Tuesday, unless it’s an emergency. 

2. Speech-Language Pathologists 

It’s essential to assess your patients extensively and employ the help of high-quality machinery that captures your patients’ swallowing abilities adequately. Equally essential is your approach to assessing speech disorders with a culturally competent lens. This means that you need adequate knowledge of your patient’s background, cultural experiences and religion. 

In some cases, what seems like a speech disorder may just be a dialect or linguistic variation related to other factors. When you are culturally competent, you can pick this up.  In addition, there can be disorders among dialects, so covering all bases ensures you give the most beneficial treatment. 

 All in all, it’s important to be mindful of these factors among individuals: 

• Culture, language and religious experience. 
• Alternative sources of care your client considered before coming to you.
• Personal preferences and cultural practices that affect linguistic variation.
• Factors that affect communication patterns like context, intent and speech partner. 
• Individual preference within culture or religion. What counts for one person may be different for another.

When speech pathologists recommend treatment, they also need to consider cultural variables that are more obvious, like symbols, food and language, and implicit factors like religious practices, spiritual beliefs, gender roles, fears and perceptions of the patient — and the parents, in cases of childhood language disorders. 

3. Gynecologists 

Some cultures and religions have their own understanding and practices of childbirth and prenatal and postnatal care. Here are some of the ways child-bearing practices can include spiritual or religious aspects: 

• Avoid certain foods.
• Discourage pain relief and believe women should experience the pain without pain management.
• Naming ceremonies or rituals right after birth.
• Incense burning as an offering to gods or ancestors to ask for their blessing.
• Purification rituals like burning herbs to cleanse the air in the delivery room. 
• Confinement and restricting certain activities for a certain period after childbirth. In some religions, women have to stay secluded in their homes for about 40 days.
• Reliance on midwives to provide support during labor. Often mid-wives may have alternative birth practices and beliefs according to tradition. 
• Traditional healing techniques include massage, acupuncture and ingesting herbs for pain, healing and balance. 

The best way to ensure patients feel safe and accommodated is through birth plans that include their religious preferences. Although complications may occur, having a birth plan with contingencies will help when you need to make a tough decision. 

4. Dieticians 

Dieticians help people manage their health by meeting personalized nutritional needs. They can recommend diets to people who have chronic conditions, health issues like diabetes and high blood pressure or recovering from eating disorders. Dieticians sometimes work together with other doctors to give balanced care. 

Considering food is a major part of religious practices and beliefs in most religions, dieticians and nutrition professionals must assess and recommend dietary solutions for health issues with these factors in mind.

Ahimsa Hindu Dietary Law

Ahimsa Hindu people treat animals with respect and believe they should not do anything that brings them harm or suffering. They follow a vegetarian lifestyle and avoid all meat and animal by-products like dairy. Some may also choose to avoid root vegetables, onions and garlic. 

Jain Dietary Law 

Jains practice ahimsa law and extend it to root vegetables. They believe that harvesting a root vegetable is violent because it kills the whole plant. They avoid onions, potatoes, carrots, radishes and mushrooms. They also avoid eating honey and anything that may be considered detrimental to spiritual growth like alcohol, smoking and drugs. 

Kosher Jewish Dietary Law

Jewish dietary law requires many foods be prepared in specific ways. For example, dishes with dairy must be prepared and eaten separately from dishes with meat or poultry. People prioritize fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. 

Halal Islamic Dietary Law

Islamic dietary laws, known as halal, dictate permissible foods based on Qur’an and Hadith teachings. These rules prohibit alcohol, pork, seafood, carnivorous animals, blood products and animal-derived ingredients. 

Seventh-day Adventist Dietary Laws 

This Law emphasizes purity and health, excluding pork, shellfish, dairy, fat-rich meat, alcoholic beverages, tobacco and sugary foods. 

The Benefit Of Considering the Religious Background of Patients 

Cultural competence involves understanding and respecting a patient’s beliefs, values and history, a lifelong process requiring self-assessment and continuous education. It improves diagnosis, treatment, interpersonal interactions, trust, compliance and care disparities.