Healthcare Practices and History of Nursing in the Jewish Culture

¶ … healthcare practices and history of nursing in the Jewish culture.

There are several healthcare practices within the Jewish culture. According to the rabbinic lore, no aging process existed until the time that Abraham was born. No disease also existed until the time when Jacob came to existence.

The connections of Jews to the healing process at patients as well as physician level is noted to be ancient with a deep root in history and theology (MyJewishLearning.com, 2011).In most religions, the idea of medical treatment was largely an anathema. In most traditional religions, disease, deformity and accident were regarded as parts of God's creation that those of human beings. Anything to do with medical treatment was largely considered to be a process of meddling with the Creator's (God's) work and will. Judaism however, views the concept of medical treatment in appositive light. It views medical treatment as an obligation on the basis of perspectives expressed in the biblical verse; Exodus 21:19, that commands the injuring party to effectively help in "surely healing" of the person who he/she has hurt. The book of Deuteronomy 4:15 also instruct Jews to take good care of themselves.

The Jewish society from the early periods of time is noted to have accorded very high status to healthcare practitioners. Several rabbis and even scholars are noted to have been physicians. This included Maimonides, a once renowned rabbi, physician and even a philosopher (Illievitz,1935; Gesundheit & Hadad,2005).

In regard to healthcare practices, the Jewish Talmud is noted to forbid one from living in a city that lacks the services of a physician (BT Sanhedrin 17b). One is also not supposed to refuse being subjected to medical treatment except when there is legitimate reason for such as refusal. Judaism is also noted never to sanction treatments, procedures and medicines that are speculative or experimental. Jews are also not allowed to engage in any activity that may endanger their health. Such activities include the use of drugs or any other mind altering substances.

Chooses one transcultural model, Leininger and describes this briefly.

The Leininger's Culture Care Theory (Leininger,1991) is noted to place a great emphasis on the meaning as well as importance of culture in the explanation of an individual's health as well as caring behavior. However, her work in Culture Care Theory is noted to be the only nursing theory which has a focus on culture. Leininger is noted to have discovered that various patients, who are drawn from diverse cultural settings valued care at a degree that surpassed that of their nurses. She then realized that there was a need to develop a conceptual framework to be used in the discovery, explanation as well as predictions of dimensions of care. This is why and when she developed the Culture Care Theory (Leininger,1997) in her work on Culture Care Theory, she noted that caring is the real essence of the nursing profession and is in itself unique to the concept of nursing (Leininger,1991;Reynolds,1995).

Relates how the Jewish culture has or could potentially influence world nursing culture and American culture, supported by the chosen transcultural model. (Leininger)

The Jewish culture is noted by several scholars to have a very strong influence on the nursing as well as American culture. This is due to the manner in which several nursing practices, ethics in nursing and pioneers of these practices subscribe to the Jewish way of life.