Health Workers and Christianity.

Running Head: Christianity
Health workers and Christianity
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

2Health Workers and Christianity
Introduction
The case revolves around the beliefs and decisions of Mike and Joanne, the parents of
an eight-year-old kid named James. The case study evaluated how the decision-making skills
of Mike are influenced by their religious beliefs.
Q1
Mike and Joanne are Christian and due to their belief in God they did not go for
medical treatment of their son. They hope that God will perform a miracle that will help to
heal their son. However, their physician was aware that James needed a transplant as soon as
possible. The physician should not allow the couple to make decisions for their son James, as
he knew that the parents were deist. The physician should inform the couple that further delay
could harm James's condition and complicate the situation (Hiebert,2016). He should make
his call and made a decision which supported beneficence of the patient. He should convince
the parents that clinical assistance is more essential for the condition rather than keeping faith
in miracles.
Mike should understand the complexity of the condition and decide after evaluating
all the possible outcomes of his decision to do nothing except keeping faith in God's miracle.
The parents of James decided to pray for saving their son's life. They felt that dialysis will
hurt James and the condition will be more complicated. This belief was vague and was biased
by their cultural beliefs. Therefore the physician's responsibility was to convince the couple
for choosing medical assistance over spirituality considering the complexity of the situation.
He should make them realize that keeping the faith will not help James to come out of the
situation. Autonomy means preparations preferences and expressed choices regarding his or
her treatment(Trinh,2019). Here there is a minor underage kid. The 8-year-old James could
not take decisions regarding medical interventions about his condition. However, his parents

3Health Workers and Christianity
are the decision-makers in this case. Despite his age, Mike and his wife should consult with
their son whether he is agreeable with the decisions. The physician could also have asked
James well, regarding his parents’ decision. The physician could at least talk to James's
parents. Patient's autonomy has been deprived in this case as both the parents and the
physician did not emphasized on the well being of the patient.
Q2
There are different dominions of the Christianity and every dominion has different
beliefs regarding sickness. The family of the patient might think that the beliefs of
Christianity are the optimum ones. However, the thoughts and beliefs of a physicians must
be different. The physicians should always prefer the ethics of treatment over any belief and
cultural values. They should try to establish the ethical principles in their treatment
irrespective of beliefs and personal values. The parents of James consider sickness as a test of
God. According to some Christians, diseases and sufferings are the result of God's
temptation(Kapic, 2017). On the contrary, some Christians believe sickness is a punishment
for sins which they have committed throughout their life or before. Some groups of Christian
believe that doctors are the representative of God and help human beings to eliminate
sickness from this earth(Gurung,2019). According to them, treatment should be done to
prevent diseases as the incidence of disease interferes with normal body functions. Mike
should allow his son to undergo dialysis.
Beneficence indicates that the best intervention must be given to the patient to
avoid maleficence in terms of treatment. Mike as a father did not take appropriate decisions
for James (Lyu & Zhang, 2018). Although it was informed to him that James's condition
would get worse if not treated. However, Mike and her wife did not have any intention to
harm their son’s health. They failed to maintain beneficence in the treatment procedure of