Why Do Cancer Patients of Dharmic Religions Rarely Ask for a Chaplain?

Why do patients from Dharmic religions rarely ask for a chaplain? Dr. Rushil Patel and his team raise this question after leading an extensive review of patient records over a four-year period at Memorial Hospital, a dedicated cancer hospital in the Memorial Sloane Kettering system, followed by interviews with both chaplains and patients from Dharmic religions. They discovered that those with cancer of Dharmic religions are less likely to use chaplaincy services. Patient’s unfamiliarity with what a chaplain does, or the patient feeling their faith would not be recognized by the hospital, are just two of the findings from the study. How comfortable are you providing spiritual care to those of the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jain faith? Given that spiritual care has proven to improve the outcomes of our oncology patients, we need to address this shortcoming in our clinical practice.