Addressing Spirituality Within the Care of Patients at the End of Life: Perspectives of Patients With Advanced Cancer, Oncologists, and Oncology Nurses [Palliative and Supportive Care]

Addressing Spirituality Within the Care of Patients at the End of Life: Perspectives of Patients With Advanced Cancer, Oncologists, and Oncology Nurses [Palliative and Supportive Care]:

Purpose
Attention to patients' religious and spiritual needs is included in national guidelines for quality end-of-life care, but little data exist to guide spiritual care.

Conclusion
Most patients with advanced cancer, oncologists, and oncology nurses value spiritual care. Themes described provide an empirical basis for engaging spiritual issues within clinical care.

abstract: Religion, Spirituality, and Cancer: The Question of Individual Empowerment

Religion, Spirituality, and Cancer: The Question of Individual Empowerment:

It has often been noted that people with a severe illness endeavor to deepen their religious and spiritual practice and knowledge. It is generally accepted that spiritual and religious factors help sick people confront their suffering. The authors conducted a qualitative research on the role of religious and spiritual practices and knowledge among 10 cancer patients in Québec, Canada. Individual interviews focused on their illness experience confirmed that religion and spirituality can be present and contribute to coping when life is threatened. More precisely, the analyses of the place and use of these resources during the patient’s illness showed that these resources contributed to an individual empowerment process that was undertaken in response to a biographic and existential disruption induced by the illness diagnosis. The sick people took advantage of religious and spiritual content in their quest for meaning and a cure, progressing from a stage of despair and powerlessness to a stage of hope, a critical analysis of the disease, and a better management and control of it and its evolution. This article describes how people suffering from cancer use and participate in religious and spiritual content. It demonstrates the contribution of this content to an individual empowerment process. The use of religion and spirituality constitutes a quest for self-mastery, an acquiring of power and control. We understand that religious and spiritual phenomena do not always prevent people from fighting against their suffering, limit their freedom, or systematically reduce people’s viewpoints and worldviews.

Molecules to Medicine: “Conscience” Clauses versus Refusal: An Historical Perspective | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

Molecules to Medicine: “Conscience” Clauses versus Refusal: An Historical Perspective | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

"Refusal clauses deny our patients the care that they need. They are not benign clauses, euphemistically referred to as “conscience” clauses. They are, instead, unconscionable clauses, shirking the professional responsibility to put our patients first."

media: The price of your soul: How the brain decides whether to 'sell out' (ethics/religion/money....)

"..."Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred – whether it's a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics – is a distinct cognitive process," says Gregory Berns, director of the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University and lead author of the study. The results were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study showed, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits......"

Practical Ethics: Religion makes a difference to end-of-life decisions