Between science and common science. Nonformal education for village health workers in Kenya.
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Africa↗
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Results for “RELIGION AND SCIENCE”
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Understanding of and attitudes to xenotransplantation: a survey among Italian university students.
UNLABELLED: Xenotransplantation is currently at the experimental stages on animal models and many problems still have to be overcome in the biomedical, immunological and ethical fields. Moreover, people's attitudes to xenotransplantation vary: surveys among intensive-care staff have revealed negative opinions, while the general public and students seem to be more positive. Little is known about the influence of schooling and the choice of university faculty on attitudes to xenotransplantation. The aims of this study were: (i) to evaluate university students' attitudes to xenotransplantation; (ii) to investigate any socio-demographic, religious and educational determinants behind students' opinions on xenotransplantation. University undergraduates on five different courses were surveyed at Padua University. A 24-item questionnaire was distributed to students at the end of lectures and completed anonymously immediately after its distribution. No information was given to students beforehand. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: chi-squared, Pearson's test; P-values <0.05 were considered significant. A total of 585 of 602 (97.2%) students completed the questionnaire (132 males, 453 females, mean age 20.4, range 19 to 43 yr). They were on courses in Medicine (33.85%), Agriculture (5.98%), Veterinary Medicine (11.45%), Psychology (18.46%) and Educational Sciences (30.26%). As for their previous schooling, they came from classical or scientific high school (58.3%), technical college (14.7%), language college (6.3%), teacher training college (11.9%) or others (8.8%). Concerning their religious beliefs, 83% were Catholics, and 56.2% defined themselves as practising Catholics. Eighty-eight percentage of the students knew of the possibility of animal organs being transplanted into humans and 77.9% of them approved of this idea. When grouped according to gender and education, a higher proportion of students approving of xenotransplantation were male (P = 0.017) and had attended classical or scientific high school (P = 0.011). Disapproval for moral, ethical or religious reasons was higher among practising than among non-practising Catholics; the latter rejected xenotransplantation more for immunological and infectious reasons (P = 0.014). As for the type of university course, a higher proportion of students approving of xenotransplantation attended science courses (Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture and Medicine vs. Educational Sciences and Psychology) (P = 0.013). University students generally approved of xenotransplantation. Male gender and a high-school education were associated with a greater acceptance of xenotransplantation. Practising vs. non-practising Catholics reported significantly different reasons for any disapproval of xenotransplantation. The choice of a science rather than an arts faculty at university was more strongly associated with a positive opinion on xenotransplantation.
Adult↗
Outbreak of measles among Christian Science students--Missouri and Illinois, 1994.
During April 4-May 17, 1994, the largest U.S. measles outbreak since 1992 occurred among students in two communities that do not routinely accept vaccination. This report summarizes the investigation of and control measures for this outbreak.
Adolescent↗
Sperm donation in Israel.
Science and technology in the field of human reproduction present new legal, ethical and religious questions which do not always have immediate answers. The first step in the rapidly developed field of reproductive technology was the use of sperm donation (artificial insemination by donor, AID) and the establishment of sperm banks. The state of Israel faced these problems when the regulations for sperm donation were discussed. The fact that the main holy places for the three monotheistic religions are in Israel directly influences the make-up of the population constituents. Therefore, besides a majority of secular people, a high percentage of the population of Israel is very religious: Jews, Moslems and Christians. Thus any resolution relating to AID should take this demographic combination into account. The practice of AID is opposed by the different monotheistic religions. To avoid the conflict between secular and religious people, and between the different religions' perspectives, the legal problem of AID in Israel was solved not by laws but by regulations which were published by the Ministry of Health. The main idea behind this attitude is that the state and its authorities should not and do not deal with ethical or religious questions. Thus, the decision was left to the couples and to the donors. The regulations address technical requirements, health problems and confidential issues concerning the couple, the donor and the child. In this paper we present the different views relating to these problems as perceived by the different religions, and describe the solution that was accepted by the Israeli Ministry of Health.
Government Regulation↗
In-vitro fertilization: the ethics.
This paper is addressed to practitioners. It seeks to acquaint them with 'ethical' arguments against their work which, because they are simple and plausible, persuade many people. These arguments are briefly rehearsed and as briefly examined. A more positive ethics of in-vitro fertilization is presented which seeks to respect (a) what is known in the relevant science and done in developing practice; (b) the inseparability of research from clinical application; (c) a moral tradition of long-standing which relates the protection of fetal life pari passu with its own morphological growth towards maturity; (d) the moral sense of properly informed persons whose judgements we trust in other areas of life. Practitioners themselves are to be defended as the proper moral agents (that is, to be entrusted with decisions) provided that they are careful (a) to keep public confidence by means of a corporate self-discipline; (b) to keep faith with patients and research subjects; (c) to maintain mutual trust between research scientists and clinical practitioners; (d) to safeguard the liberty of disciplined enquiry, of purposeful curiosity, as being inherent in the notion of a science, necessary to therapeutic advance, and proper to the nature of man. The author writes from within the theological tradition of the Church of England.
Abortion, Legal↗
Influence of Judaism and Jewish physicians on Greek and Byzantine medicine and their contribution to nephrology.
Both the Old Testament and the Talmud contain a great deal of information on medicine, nephrology, health and disease. The basic premise of early Jewish medicine is based on the notion that disease is due to structural changes in internal organs. This is in contrast to the mythical dogma of humoralism as the basis of health and disease espoused by Hippocrates and Galen. The Old Testament and the Mosaic Codes provided the basis for modern public health and for the hygienic rules practised in our times. The Talmudists laid the foundations for the science of pathology as we know it today. These issues are discussed in detail and the contributions of three prominent medieval physicians (Asaph Judaeus, Isaac Judaeus and Maimonides) are presented.
Bible↗
Sociodemographic factors, religiosity, academic performance, and substance use among first-year university students in South Africa.
The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships among sociodemographic variables, family background, religiosity, course of study, academic performance, and substance use. The sample included 799 first-year students in the age range of 16 to 49 years (M age 20.1 yr., SD = 3.2) chosen at random from the University of the North in South Africa. A Model Core Questionnaire from the WHO on Substance use was administered. Analysis indicated that women smoked tobacco or cannabis and drank less than men, while women took more stimulants and other opiate type drugs than men. Low scores on religiosity was a predictor for past-month tobacco use alcohol use, binge drinking, cannabis use, and having a drinking or drug problem now. Being a member of a Protestant denominational church or a Roman Catholic was a predictor for past-month tobacco and alcohol use. A family history of drinking or drug problems and being a social science or humanities student were predictive for a current alcohol or drug problem. Economic status, education of parents. living arrangement. and rural-urban differences were not associated with substance use. Findings have implications for prevention programmes.
Achievement↗
Integrating the Jewish Dietary Laws into a dietetics program. Kashruth in a dietetics curriculum.
A clinical and community dietetics program integrates Kashruth, the Jewish Dietary Laws, into its curriculum. Simply defined, kosher means fit for consumption. Emblems used throughout the United States and Canada to indicate a program of rabbinic endoresment and supervision of canned, boxed, and bottled products are included. An existing kosher unit is described, and guidelines for establishing a kosher food science laboratory unit are offered. Suggestions for instituting kosher foodservice in health care facilities are given. Therapeutic applications of Kashruth are suggested, and approved therapeutic food products are listed.
Cooking↗
Dimensions of happiness: a qualitative study of family practice residents.
BACKGROUND: Happiness is related to both positive and negative forces. Positive factors, or happiers, that compensate for stressors in residency have only recently been recognized in a pilot study of 14 family practice residents. These happiers are positivism, the pursuit of goals, relationships, a religious belief system, and feedback. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe happiers of residency in family practice in each postgraduate year and relate the findings to established theories on well-being. METHODS: A qualitative interview with participant observation was used to study 59 residents at four family practice residency sites. Interviews were semistructured and audiotaped. Tapes and field notes were analyzed for trends. The Faces Scale was administered as a happiness visual analog scale. RESULTS: The importance of a well-balanced lifestyle, as well as the pursuit of goals, relationships, and accentuation of the positive, were found to be happiers for all residents interviewed. Religious commitment, feedback, and a sense of control or autonomy were important to the level of happiness of more than 60 percent of residents interviewed. Feedback was more important to 1st-year residents, and a sense of control was more important to 2nd-year and 3rd-year residents. CONCLUSION: The seven happiers described in this study were similar to happiness factors reported in the social science literature. Our findings could contribute to theories of resident well-being and further the research on well-being in residency training.
Achievement↗
Faculty and resident attitudes about spirituality and religion in the provision of pediatric health care.
OBJECTIVE: To characterize pediatricians' attitudes toward spirituality/religion (S/R) in relationship to the practice of pediatrics. METHODS: Pediatric faculty (n = 100) and residents (n = 65) in an urban academic medical center completed a questionnaire about their attitudes toward and clinical practices related to S/R. Study variables included the strength of personal S/R orientation, attitudes toward S/R, clinicians' discussion of S/R with patients and families, self-reported S/R behaviors, the medical conditions that warrant discussion of S/R, and attitudes toward praying with patients if asked to do so. RESULTS: Sixty-five percent of pediatricians felt that faith plays a role in healing, and 76% reported feeling comfortable praying with a patient if asked to do so. Ninety-three percent would ask about S/R when discussing a life-threatening illness, and 96% when discussing death and dying. A strong personal S/R orientation was associated with beliefs that the pediatrician should discuss S/R with the patient (P <.01); beliefs that faith plays a role in healing (P <.01); and feelings that patients would like to discuss S/R with their pediatrician (P <.01), that the doctor-patient relationship would be strengthened by discussion of S/R (P <.01), and that physicians should call on an S/R leader for an illness or death (P <.01). Personal S/R orientation was not related to whether physicians reported that they discuss S/R issues with their patients (P =.08). Residents were more likely than faculty to state that it is appropriate to pray with patients if asked to do so (P <.05), and compared with pediatricians who were science majors in college, pediatricians who were nonscience majors in college felt more comfortable praying with patients if asked to do so (P <.01). CONCLUSIONS: In an urban, inner-city, academic medical center, pediatric residents and faculty have an overall positive attitude toward the integration of S/R into the practice of pediatrics.
Academic Medical Centers↗
Recent works on reproductive technology.
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Abortion, Induced↗
Defining life: the ethical context for human quality questions.
The links between ethics, medicine and the law cannot readily produce appropriate criteria for human quality questions, largely because ethics are misconstrued where they are not excluded; but also because the science at issue is full of unknowns. The paper surveys issues in eugenics, abortion and euthanasia.
Abortion, Eugenic↗
The epidemiology of infant deaths in the Armenian parish records of Lebanon.
It is difficult to study time trends in mortality from most developing countries due to the lack of an appropriate data base. The present investigation is based on data from parish records of the Armenian Apostolic churches in Lebanon. Death and baptismal registers have been regularly maintained in these churches from 1863. Infant deaths were identified in the registers of the 13 churches. Available data on these deaths were abstracted, coded and analysed. Denominators for the different periods of study and for the various churches were calculated from baptismal records. The study shows that there has been a constant drop in the infant deaths over the review period. Infant mortality rates were higher in the parishes located in refugee camp areas. The most important recorded causes of death included diarrhoea and pneumonia. A study of clustering of deaths by time and place revealed a major epidemic of measles with high fatality in 1926. This epidemic had been previously unrecorded. The present study demonstrates the use of non-traditional data sources to assess long-term secular trends of mortality.
Armenia↗
Spiritual thoughts, coping and 'sense of coherence' in brain tumour patients and their spouses.
When a person is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, existential questions are easily triggered. The aims of this study were to explore to what extent brain tumour patients and their next of kin were able to cope, understand and create meaning in their situation, to explore whether spirituality could be supportive and to analyse whether these concepts are related to Antonovsky's concept of sense of coherence. Using a purposive sampling technique, 20 patients and 16 of their next of kin took part in tape-recorded interviews. A content and context analysis was performed using a hermeneutic approach. We found that comprehensibility was to a large extent constructed by the patient's own thoughts and theories, despite an insecure situation. Manageability was achieved by active information-seeking strategies, by social support and by coping, including positive reinterpretation of the situation. Meaningfulness was central for quality of life and was created by close relations and faith, as well as by work. A crucial factor was whether the person had a 'fighting spirit' that motivated him or her to go on. As only three patients were believers, trust in God had generally been replaced by a belief and confidence in oneself, in science, in positive thinking and by closeness to nature. Sense of coherence as a concept can explain how exposed persons handle their situation. In its construction, sence of coherence integrates essential parts of the stress/coping model (comprehensibility, manageability) and of spirituality (meaning).
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Ethical issues in hospital medicine.
The medical ethics of the new millennium will be fascinating and fast moving in our pluralistic Western society. This will be particularly true in ethics in the hospital setting and under hospitalist models. Ethical decisions are ubiquitous in medical practice, at the microlevel of the patient-physician relationship and at the macro-level of the allocation of resources and other ethical decisions. Hospitalists need to recognize that ethical issues are distinct from medical ones and need to utilize different techniques in their resolution. Ethics in the public sector, such as in hospitals and other health care organizations, cannot transcend politics completely, because the public sector is the political arena. For ethical guidelines to survive, however, they must be based not on political expediency but on sound ethical principles and reasoning. As the knowledge of medicine, technology, and science continues to grow, the challenges of regulation, policy, and ethical issues in the hospital setting and elsewhere in the health care system will occupy physicians for some time to come.
Clinical Competence↗
The human body as field of conflict between discourses.
The approach to AIDS as a disease and a threat for social discrimination is used as an example to illustrate a conceptual thesis. This thesis is a claim that concerns what we call a medical issue or not, what is medicalised or needs to be demedicalised. In the friction between medicalisation and demedicalisation as discursive strategies the latter approach can only be effected through the employment of discourses or discursive strategies other than medicine, such as those of the law and of economics. These discourses each realise different values, promote a different subject, and have a different concept of man. The concept of discourse is briefly outlined against concepts such as the linear growth concept of science and the growth model of science as changes in paradigm. The issue of testing for AIDS shows a conflict between the medical and the legal discourse and illustrates the title of our contribution: the human body as field of conflict between discourses.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
Ignatius of Loyola on medical education. Or: Should today's Jesuits continue to run health sciences schools?
There are present 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States, which together offer more than 50 health sciences degree programs. But as the Society's membership is shrinking and the financial risks involved in sponsoring health sciences education are rising, the question arises whether the Society should continue to sponsor health sciences degree programs. In fact, at least eight Jesuit health sciences schools have already closed their doors. This paper attempts to contribute to the resolution of this urgent question by reexamining Ignatius own views on health sciences education and, more specifically, his prohibition of the Society's sponsoring medical education. It concludes on the basis of an historical analysis of Ignatius' views that there is insufficient support for today's Jesuits to maintain their engagement in medical and health care education.
Catholicism↗
[Quality of life in medicine--origins, main concepts and directions of change].
Assessment of the quality of life depends not only health, but also on many other factors, which together make up the everyday life of the individual, including: independence, relationship to the environment, personal beliefs, attitudes and religion. The illness process, irrespective of its stage or magnitude, influences the life of the patient, very often leading to a break down in organisation and limiting his/her ability to fulfill his/her roles and social functions. In consequence, a lowering of living standards results. For many years, health was measured in very narrow terms and in a negative sense. Deviations from normal health were measured, with no attempt to find indicators of good health. The aim of this paper is to present the origins and main concepts underlying the notion of quality of life, which developed first within the social sciences, and since the 1970s has been recognised within medicine. The approach demonstrates a different perspective for understanding a sick person, not merely from the biological point of view, but also taking into account aspects of psychological social and spiritual functioning. Introduction of the concept of quality of life is determined by the fact that the aim of therapeutic interventions ought to be not only reducing the symptoms of an illness, but also providing an improvement in the sick person's functioning, thus leading to an improvement in his/her quality of life.
Clinical Medicine↗