Schopenhauer, Buddha, and The Path to Better Patient Care

Central Question: Would someone who holds the views of a Schopenhauer or the Buddha make a better or worse nurse than someone who believes otherwise?

Introduction

The response to illness and health depends on religion. Buddhism philosophy on suffering is based on the Four Noble Truths (Rahula, 2017). As a result, the views on the need of compassion in ethics varies from one philosopher to the other. According to Schopenhauer, compassion is an important aspect in morality (Coble, 2016). To him, care and compassion should be instilled in ethics and moral philosophy. Thus, he contributed greatly to the ethics of care in the healthcare context. Given the widespread considerations to improve the quality of care, someone who holds the views of Schopenhauer or Buddha can make a better nurse.

Application

Schopenhauer believes in compassion, which is an important aspect in nursing care. Compassion is associated with empathy while delivering care. It helps a patient to have a sense of belonging, which promotes health. Patients feel comfortable while in pain, distress, and mental illness when given compassionate care. Patient’s need confidence and support to battle various illnesses. Compassionate care, therefore, ensures that a patients successfully recovers from a surgical procedure or a devastating illness.

Schopenhauer also emphasizes on contentment, which is an important nursing value. He emphasized that people should not desire the things they cannot achieve as it results to pain and suffering. For example, the Functional Contentment Model (FCM) helps in the delivery of quality care especially to the patients living in resident home. The model emphasizes on team care management, patient-centered care, and slow medicine to promote recovery of a patient suffering from an illness. The nurses should consider the resident’s preferences, experiences, and social supports to deliver optimal care.

The Buddha teachings stress on patience as a moral value. Dharma is another name for the teachings (Rahula, 2017). The Buddha teaches its believer to endure suffering and difficulties. Patience applies in nurse practice since it promotes acceptance. In other words, anger and stress only contributes to the delivery of poor quality care. A lack of patience also contributes to medical and prescription errors, which undermines a patient’s safety. Patience helps nurses to overcome the day to day stress and dilemma in the healthcare sector. Nurses working in emergency rooms or visiting patients in the ward should exercise patience to ensure delivery of optimal care. A calm attitude helps a nurse to adhere to his or her responsibility. This involves delivering utmost care to vulnerable patients. Patients feel relaxed and comfortable if the nurse is keen and patient.

The Buddha also emphasizes on moral awareness, which is crucial in the healthcare sector. Sīla in Buddhism is associated with right conduct (Rahula, 2017). Nurses should strive to understand the ethical consequences of their practice. In other words, to effectively provide care to patients, nurses must have ethical awareness (Perez-Bret, Altisent & Rocafort, 2016). This follows the complexity in healthcare, which requires an awareness on ethical issues that may emerge. It should be noted that patients are affected by the actions of nurses. Thus, nurses are called upon to deliver safe and moral care to patients. Taking good care of the patients is the moral obligation of nurses. Therefore, moral awareness is important in the alleviation of suffering from patients and their family-caregivers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Schopenhauer’s philosophy and Buddha teachings are important in nursing practice. For instance, compassion helps nurses to promote the healing of a patient. Besides, they learn to show empathy and concern to patients through compassion. This helps the patients to recover and be satisfied with the healthcare services. Secondly, patience is key to the delivery of safe care. In other words, errors arise from anger and anxiety in the healthcare sector.

References

1. Coble, K. (2016). Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible: From Kant to Schopenhauer.
2. Perez-Bret, E., Altisent, R., & Rocafort, J. (2016). Definition of compassion in healthcare: a systematic literature review. International journal of palliative nursing, 22(12), 599-606.
3. Rahula, W. (2017). What the Buddha Taught. New York, NY: Motilal Banarsidass.