Version 1
: Received: 15 May 2019 / Approved: 16 May 2019 / Online: 16 May 2019 (12:38:38 CEST)
How to cite:
Stonestreet, J. Recommendations for How to Respond When the Family Is Hoping for a Miracle. Preprints2019, 2019050213. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201905.0213.v1
Stonestreet, J. Recommendations for How to Respond When the Family Is Hoping for a Miracle. Preprints 2019, 2019050213. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201905.0213.v1
Stonestreet, J. Recommendations for How to Respond When the Family Is Hoping for a Miracle. Preprints2019, 2019050213. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201905.0213.v1
APA Style
Stonestreet, J. (2019). Recommendations for How to Respond When the Family Is Hoping for a Miracle. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201905.0213.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Stonestreet, J. 2019 "Recommendations for How to Respond When the Family Is Hoping for a Miracle" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201905.0213.v1
Abstract
Objective: To recommend how physicians can best respond to families whose hopes for a miracle via divine intervention influence their medical decisions, like, for example, making them not want to withdraw ventilatory support in cases of poor neurologic prognosis because they are still hoping for God to intervene. Methods: Auto-ethnographic analysis of chaplaincy experience in this clinical context yields a nuanced 90-second, point-of-care spiritual intervention physicians can use to address the religious aspect of families who base medical decisions on their hopes for a miracle via divine intervention. Explanation of how spiritual intervention dovetails with existing physician communication protocol for responding to families hoping for a miracle. Results: Spiritual intervention for religious aspect of miracle-hoping families is integrated into existing physician communication protocol for responding to families hoping for a miracle with recommendations for utilization of existing communication technology when necessary. Conclusion: Properly addressing the religious dimension of families hoping for a miracle may be helpful for physicians interested in decreasing their own stress levels, improving outcomes for this clinical context, and ensuring that unintentional discrimination does not perpetuate racial disparities in end-of-life care.
Keywords
Poor prognosis;medically non-beneficial care; futility; breaking bad news; withdrawal of care; miracle; hope; goals of care; communication; health disparities; racial discrimination; ethnocultural discrimination
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received:
19 May 2019
Commenter:
RS (Rhonda) Cooper
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
Comment:
I think it is interesting that you reversed the authorship of the Article about the AMEN protocol, giving first authorship to the physician involved in the project - revealing your own bias and then mis-reporting the citation in your reference (in terms of authorship. Indeed, the chaplain and nurse were primary authors of the work, both of us members of the cancer center staff and involved in early palliative efforts in the cancer center. The physicians were certainly actively contributing and wholeheartedly supportive. Indeed, the physician given credit in your article was the one who challenged the primary authors to write and submit the manuscript to the J Onc Pract after an oral presentation at medical rounds in the cancer center. Why would you reverse authorship in the citation and in so doing, minimize the work of a chaplain colleague?
Commenter: RS (Rhonda) Cooper
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.