Bioethics Discussion Blog: What If?: Dealing with End-Stage Cancer and Religious Coping

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

What If?: Dealing with End-Stage Cancer and Religious Coping


What if you had end-stage cancer and you were nearing the end of your life?

What if you had been using religion to cope with your cancer and its consequences?

What if both of the above “what ifs” applied to YOU and there was intensive life-prolonging care and treatment such as mechanical ventilation and resuscitation available in the last week of your life? Would you desire and accept that treatment?

The study by Phelps, Maciejewski and others in the March 18, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association has led to a very interesting statistically significant conclusion: “Positive religious coping in patients with advanced cancer is associated with receipt of intensive life-prolonging medical care near death” and this relationship was still statistically significant after “adjusting for other coping styles, terminal illness acknowledgment, support of spiritual needs, preference for heroics, and advance care planning (do-not-resuscitate order, living will, and health care proxy/durable power of attorney)”

Read the free complete abstract of the article at the link above and then return and give us your opinion of this research finding and how it might apply to you if you were that “what if”. If this study is valid, how would you explain how using religion in dealing with the consequences of cancer would make it more likely that a patient would want mechanical ventilation, if needed for life-support, during the last week of life? Would it be related to religion and miracles? Or what? ..Maurice.

Graphic: Photograph taken by me and digitally modified with Picasa3.

posted by Maurice Bernstein, M.D. @ 2:57:00 PM   1 comments

1 Comments:

At Saturday, August 01, 2009 7:40:00 PM, Blogger Maurice Bernstein, M.D. said...

An example of a father praying for relief of his daughter's illness which lead to her death can be found in a current AP article where a Wisconsin father "accused of killing his 11 year old daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care was found guilty...of second-degree reckless homicide." She died from undiagnosed diabletes ... Prosecutors contended he should have rushed the girl to a hospital because she couldn't walk, talk, eat or speak. Instead, Madeline died on the floor of the family's rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called 911 when she stopped breathing." The wife was ealier convicted of the same charge and both face a 25 year prison term.
Religious faith appears not to be an acceptable substitute for professional medical attention. ..Maurice.

 

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