Nurse suspended for prayer offer

[Esmoreit]

highwaystar101 said:

mrstickball said:
Crazy. Very sad to see this happen to the nurse.

There's a big gap between someone randomly asking 'may I pray for you' and forcing someone to pray with them. It seems the former is the case with this issue.

I think that there may be more to the story, but as-is it sounds that the company + the patient are being pretty anal about the situation. It's not the end of the world if someone cares enough for someone to pray for them.

Next, we'll be going back to the days of Daniel, and throwing people in jail because they found out they were unwilling participants in a prayer :-

This is just general, not aimed at you mrstickball.

 

But I think that offering to pray during work hours is just as bad, it's shows a religious bias, regardless of if anything is done or not. In place of medicine religious bias can cause major trouble. This is because different religions have different thoughts about medicine.

For example, if I was a Jehovas witness and a surgeon, I could not go into surgery everyday and refuse to do half of them because according to my religion blood tranfusions are unholy, it will just cause problems.

Another example, if a patient was christian and the doctor was hindu, it would not mix in a place of medicine. Could you imagine a hindu doctor telling a christian patient that they may get better if they start being nicer due to karma, but if not never mind, you will be reincarnated. That would make a christians head explode.

I know tehse examples are more extreme than the nurse, but that is why the rule is in effect, you have to be strict, give em an inch and they take a mile.

And further more, my girlfriend is a third year medicine student and jewish (not a big one mind). When she goes to hosital every morning she leaves that at the door and she becomes a godless doctor, the way it should be. There is no problem with faith outside a place of medcine, but inside, offering faith is a step too far.

 

From a theoretical standpoint you are right, but practicly this could never happen. All people of medicine have to declare the Hippocrates' oath meaning that they should do their best to keep any person alive (short version.) That means that a doctor should always perform the transfusions and leave Karma out. He could say of course that eating beef is bad but still, a normal doctor would do that too. Plus, I believe most people of religious background respect other religions.

Your girlfriend aswell. She is not a strict-orthodox Jew and will therefore not let the medicine meddle with her beliefs. Hell, I'm an atheist and would enjoy her reading to me out of the Torah to pass the boredom of a hospitalbed.