Jason Hartman uses this episode to look at medical schools and how they should be looking at different religions to support health care practices. Not doing so leaves many people more vulnerable when they receive care. He hosts Dr. John Dawson to discuss his book Religion in Medicine and its relevance in the West and other societies.
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Announcer 0:12
Welcome to the Solomon success show, where we explore the timeless wisdom of King Solomon and the Bible, as it relates to business and investing false prophets and get rich quick schemes are everywhere. Let’s not be distracted by these. Instead, let’s go to the source, the eternal principles that create a life of peace, power and prosperity. Here’s our host, Jason Hartman.
Jason Hartman 0:41
It’s my pleasure to welcome john Dawson to the show. He is the author of religion in medicine volumes one and two. And he’s coming to us from Newport News, Rhode Island. JOHN, welcome. How are you?
Dr John Dawson 0:51
Newport News, Virginia. I apologize. Where did I think Rhode Island? We make big ships. I know.
Jason Hartman 0:58
Yeah, I know. I’ve seen you on the house. Haha, on various shows making those. It’s a pleasure to have you with us today. Tell us how you came to write these two books and what is missing in our medical system. It’s pretty significant. Ah,
Dr John Dawson 1:14
I’ve retired now, but I was in medicine about 50 ideas. And gradually over those times, I’ve realized that doctors are receiving no religious instruction, either in their training, or neither do their professors know anything about it either. In the good old days, the patient went to the hospital. When he was in hospital, his cleric came to visit him, and his own GP came to visit him. So this man, anybody who’s looking after in hospital could know what was going on at home. Now, if you’re sick, you get passed on to a hospitalist, who has no contact with the cleric who has no contact with the doctor. And this is really serious from the medical point of view because you don’t know half the information you need to treat your patient. As you know, when you hand over a patient that the burner is dead. That’s a first class way of spreading the disease.
Jason Hartman 2:08
Yeah, it sure is. So when did this change that the medical system stopped paying attention to patients religious needs?
Dr John Dawson 2:15
I really don’t know. But I think it’s just the pace of things. From the hospital point of view. They don’t provide the same car parking space. They don’t have a secretary for the clerics. They don’t have a special room. They don’t have a Rolodex brought up to date telling the clerics what patients they have in hospital, etc, etc. and from the doctor’s point of view, we’ve lost touch. We don’t even teach the history of medicine nowadays, because there’s just so much in the curriculum, that religion really crappy went out the window. That may be a totally erroneous conclusion, but that’s one way
Jason Hartman 2:50
take us through some of the different needs of the different faiths you know, whether it be Christian, the high Hindu, Islam, Judaism, you know, etc.
Dr John Dawson 3:00
You’ve never heard the Christian, the Christian routine for dying is very different from that of the drew is very different from that of the kingdom is very different from that of the saints of behind who doesn’t want to have any cremation. And yet the hinders, as you know, when they’re dead on the edges of the Ganges, it’s this sort of thing. Some people like to get their bodies underground, within the first day or two after death. Some like to have awake for a week or two. What about the non
Jason Hartman 3:31
death side of it, though? Just the care within, you know, within the institution. Let’s assume that the patient hopefully doesn’t pass on. Are there any big considerations there that are being overlooked?
Dr John Dawson 3:43
Well, I think it’s just the comfort set primarily. When the picker comes into a hospital. If your patient is well known to him, You enjoy seeing him and you talk about the family and you talk about things and you talk about your problems within the hospital and if the doctor comes in to see you, my daughter is a GP She sometimes goes in to see her patients. And it’s a very good contact with what’s really going on. And it’s of inestimable help to a doctor who really wants to be part of the team, I consider that good patient care comes from Dr. cleric and patient. That’s how you get your case history properly. fixed up,
Jason Hartman 4:21
right. I would agree. I think that patient rapport and communication and bedside manner cannot be understated. Those are important.
Dr John Dawson 4:28
Take one example. I had a young Roman Catholic priest who came into my world and he said, john, I’m going to die. I know that. So this is what I want to arrange. So we arranged some candles and a little light for him to eat his muscle and quiet times. And if anybody saw him praying, we didn’t disturb him. We arrange the staff the other and we arranged for him to have his own Catholic mentor to come in and look after him. And depressed he lost his eyesight and then he lost, which was pretty serious. Because he couldn’t read his missile, I warned him what was going to happen to him at each phase of his disease. And he planned for it, and so forth and so on. Finally he passed away so Crossley that you hardly knew he died. It was absolutely magnificent. And that was a very learning to me. The other thing was never a Jewish lady. And we got our like house on fire and she said, Now I must come to the breath. To which I said, What is that? It is actually of course the ritual circumcision. So I went to that and it was magnificent. And there I saw the moral who do is click on the poor little infants penis, and that contrast it’s so beautifully he did a quick twist of the wrist and circumcision was done. In the meantime, the off the same often I would be looking after my little infant pediatric cases, and I would be using an open Isa mosque and the bone crushing forceps in there, it’s just ridiculous.
Jason Hartman 5:55
Yeah, good point. What can be done to remedy the problem in You know, can it be afforded from an economic standpoint? I mean, the cost of healthcare, it’s just skyrocketing. You know, can hospitals afford the extra real estate, the extra staff and so forth?
Dr John Dawson 6:12
Monster minimal? What I think it starts with from the medic point of view, they need to introduce religion in medicine costs in amongst the mix. From the hospital point of view, they need to go back to their old system, just a few more places in the parking space. There are a little room and a secretary to to look after them. Because there’s a big hospital you may have 15 or 20 Records, rector’s, whatever you may call passes Roman Catholic priests looking after your three or 400 patients hospital. And it’s pretty minimal compared to the cost of say, a parent nowadays, which can be $15,000 just for the pill. It’s very small. So all you have to do is have a change of heart and reorganize the system rather differently.
Jason Hartman 6:56
Right, right. But those pills are sold by pharmaceutical company That have huge lobbying organizations and lots of clout
Dr John Dawson 7:04
that’s captured see this as a good thing. And who turn on the cloud? I must admit you’re quite right. I’m advertising now, as you know, that’s how you got brief. Like find the medics really don’t care about them. A lot of doctors have written say this as long as they do well done. But notice that I consider the ones that there are lots in the busy, busy, busy hospital where they have hospitalist. They say, we’re just not necessary,
Jason Hartman 7:36
which is not true. Very good point. Very good point. What other things do you want to share from your experience and your writings on this subject?
Dr John Dawson 7:43
Well, one of the things was, I was working in London and we had a Sikh congregation in east of London. And a Sikh came in and he had his head stokin. He was somebody tried to make a home in his skull. So we brought him in and we had to shave him so that we could Lift up his collar and reconstitute his head. So we did that. But in the process, we had shaved him. I knew that you shouldn’t save six. That was one of the things I picked up my school boys. So when he came through, I explained to him that we had had to do this and why. And he was so astounded that some British clown should know anything about this, the TV and he was he got very excited that he would produce a silk square for me every month in the emergency room and bring it to me, because I had realized that it was a fundamental criteria for a seat if you don’t shave your head. And so that went down very well. Then I had a Jewish tailor who medical students in the UK nurses with course just my surgeries are under two pairs of pants. It was where to go for high holidays in Edinburgh. This is a very, very orthodox Jewish, so I did that was get pepper, but he was fascinated and I that whole sort of basic story of high home today in Edinburgh. And I also went to high mass at this separate con in Paris. And you see these legends and not seeing the religions on the edge of the Ganges being taken there will seek and hindrances. And if you get involved in these religious practices, then learn a little bit about it. It’s so fascinating. And my volumes run is the first one is mostly Western churches. And the second one is Eastern churches, which is, of course, very, very different and very, very useful. If you’re a doctor.
Jason Hartman 9:35
How is the sum treated around the world? I mean, I’m assuming the North American or even the westernized even in Europe, parts of the medical community just sort of ignore most of this and, and in the east and other parts of the world. It’s considered and it’s part of medicine. That’s just my assumption. I have no idea.
Dr John Dawson 9:55
I can speak for the UK and five mils and Australia and the euro. I’ve been here for about 40 odd years plus. And it seems to be that I suppose it’s fairly generic that, that because of the pace of science and whereas, in the good old days you got better from, from being sick by hands on, and you would get a lot of sleeping and so forth and so on mystics, and the religious side of knife is very important. Gradually, as the doctor got more and more tools, and more and more, this whole thing swung to the doctor. And so now now that they’re the chief, Rabbi and the chief priest of medicine, and so the others have been rather forgotten.
Jason Hartman 10:39
Very interesting point.
Dr John Dawson 10:40
I think that’s what’s happened. But of course, the crucial thing is that most areas are under adopted, and that any doctor who is there is generally a local, who knows very well what to what to do, and who’s, who’s there and who’s the boss of the family, his family, so forth and so on. And so they can cope. This when they are Western Come in with no one no knowledge of what’s going on in this country. And of course, we’ve had brilliant examples. If you’re a member of the British Empire, you know how to crash the British. Were around the world visibly, lots of things.
Jason Hartman 11:16
You know, I, I often take a little bit of issue with that criticism of the Brits, because they did some good, they organized a lot of the world. I mean, you know, it’s, oh, I’m not justifying Empire or imperialism, but look at India today versus where India might have been without British occupation. You know, I’m just, I’m just kind of taking the other side of it for a moment. You know, I’m not saying it’s right or anything.
Dr John Dawson 11:39
I’m Britain an imperialist. But, and we left with a good education. We left the good legal code, and we left sort of another good place as opposed to things we didn’t leave in Iraq.
Jason Hartman 11:53
The English language to which opened up a lot of
Dr John Dawson 11:57
useful because that’s another problem when you go abroad, you can’t really discuss things very well. You don’t have the language.
Jason Hartman 12:05
Very interesting point. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. The books are on Amazon. But again, folks, they’re not on Kindle. So I’m hoping that will happen soon. But you can get paperback and good old fashioned hardcover. JOHN, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr John Dawson 12:20
I think they’ll make good reading for most people. A lot of people really have enjoyed the
Jason Hartman 12:25
good stuff. Well, thank you much.
Dr John Dawson 12:26
Okay, so thank you very much for your interview. It’s a real privilege.
Jason Hartman 12:31
Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to check out Hartman media.com for appropriate disclaimers and Terms of Service. Remember that guest opinions are their own. And if you require specific legal or tax advice, or advice in any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.