Several years ago, a patient at Virtua West Jersey Hospital Marlton, in Marlton, N.J., was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer with spinal metastases. The patient was septic, bleeding from a spinal wound, and was experiencing kidney failure. Hospitalists recommended stopping treatment and moving the patient to hospice care. The patient’s family refused, and told hospitalists that, according to their Christian faith, suffering was the only true path to heaven. Hospitalists kept the patient as comfortable as possible, but blood pressure problems and hypotension made it difficult for them to administer pain medication.
Hospitalists held numerous meetings with the family and medical and nursing staff to discuss the ethical implications of the situation. Two months later, the patient suffered cardiac arrest and died.
“The medical staff and family were continuously at odds because the patient was suffering so much,” says Marianne Holler, DO, a hospitalist at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Osteopathic Medicine, who was part of the patient’s medical team. “We were never able to discontinue life support throughout [the patient’s] hospital stay.”
Whether planning a routine procedure or end-of-life care, hospitalists may be called into religious discussions with patients, their families, spiritual advisors, and hospital chaplains. While many hospitalists have received ethics and other professional training to prepare them for these conversations, some say the intersection of religion and medicine remains a challenging and multifaceted aspect of their practice.
—The Rev. Peter Yuichi Clark, PhD, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Berkeley, Calif.
A Hospitalist’s Belief
Hospitalists’ brief relationships with patients may influence the degree of knowledge they have about an individual’s religious beliefs, says Scott Enderby, DO, a hospitalist at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, Calif. Over the years, primary care physicians may become less involved with a patient’s acute medical needs as they use hospitalist services to manage their inpatients, Dr. Enderby says. This means hospitalists must discuss patients’ wishes regarding code status and resuscitation, end-of-life care, and other necessary treatments.
When discussing religion and treatment, hospitalists must put aside their personal beliefs, and this may not always be easy, says Dr. Thomas McIlraith, MD, medical director of Hospital Medicine at Mercy Medical Group in Sacramento, Calif. Dr. McIlraith recalls a Jehovah’s Witness patient who cited religious beliefs when refusing a blood transfusion following a massive post-partum hemorrhage. The patient was severely anemic, and her hemoglobin levels plunged dangerously to 2 gm/dL. Leaders from the patient’s church asked Dr. McIlraith to try hemoglobin substitutes, but he was unable to do so because these substitutes still were experimental and associated with significant complications, he says.
Dr. McIlraith had to act fast. He instructed the obstetrician on the case to stop drawing hemoglobin levels; the patient needed every drop of blood she had to carry oxygen. He administered erythropoietin and iron to stimulate red blood cell production. He also put the patient on high flow oxygen to help saturate the plasma. The patient survived without a blood transfusion or significant complications.
“I didn’t think [the patient] was going to make it,” says Dr. McIlraith. “This was a very difficult situation because I knew they would have benefited from a blood transfusion. But, I presented them with their options and respected their wishes.”
Religious Diversity
Religious diversity can be another challenging aspect of patient care. In its 2008 U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life interviewed 35,000 Americans age 18 and older and found “religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.” The survey also found “people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (16.1%) also exhibit remarkable internal diversity.”