Doctors as objects of worship: Reconsidering doctors’ competency based on cultural context

Since the first author entered medical school in the late 1990s in Japan, she has witnessed and heard accounts of patients joining their hands in prayer toward doctors, as if they are praying toward gods. What she remembers is that the patient’s praying action was perplexing because she felt that sh...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asia Pacific Scholar (Online) 2019-09, Vol.4 (3), p.99-101
Main Authors: Morishita, Mariko, Nishigori, Hiroshi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Anthropology
Buddhism
Deities
Medical education
Medical practices
Medicine
Patients
Physicians
Religion
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Since the first author entered medical school in the late 1990s in Japan, she has witnessed and heard accounts of patients joining their hands in prayer toward doctors, as if they are praying toward gods. What she remembers is that the patient’s praying action was perplexing because she felt that she was being treated not as a human being but rather as a supernatural being or a creature with inexplicable powers. RELIGION AND MEDICINE Because the Japanese term “religion (shu-kyo; 宗教)” is Eurocentric and derived from Christian tradition, it had to be reconceptualised at the beginning of the Meiji period (in the late 1800s) in Japan, and previous belief systems in Japan were sorted out on the basis of this concept in response to the Great Powers’ urging of the Japanese government to explain the Japanese “religion(s)” (Josephsen, 2012). [...]Japanese belief systems and practices were not represented by the word “religion” in English, and it is still difficult to call them “religions”. Some of them are represented as humans, but others are materials, such as stones and trees. [...]Japanese belief systems and practices are different from religion in the conventional sense.
ISSN:2424-9335
2424-9270
DOI:10.29060/TAPS.2019-4-3/PV2089