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Spiritual care

  • Dhastagr Sheriff, Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Benghazi University, Benghazi, Libya
8 January 2021

A dying patient requires spiritual care. It is said that “The physician will do better to be close by to tune in carefully on what may be transpiring spiritually, both in order to comfort the dying and to broaden his or her own understanding of life at its ending”. 1
“Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as a whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul”2
Staying with the patient, holding his hand, and comforting him during such distress and eventuality prepares the patient for the ultimate and also teaches the physician that life and death are the two coins of life. That care to the patient we can call spiritual care.
1.Leighton S. When mortality calls, don't hang up. Spiritual Life. 1996; 22(3):150–157. [Google Scholar]
2.McSherry W, Cash K, Ross L. Meaning of spirituality: Implications for nursing practice. J Clin Nurs. 2004;13:934–941. 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2004.01006.x [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]

Competing Interests: None declared.
References 
Sharon McCutcheon. The butterfly. CMAJ 2021;193:E27-E28.
See article »

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Copyright 2021, Joule Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

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