Utilization is up next. While it is important to have faith, to have good medicine, to have good doctors, and to have a good treatment plan none of them have any value in themselves unless we put them to use. Faith without practice is a three legged stool missing a leg, and will eventually sooner over later will certainly topple over. The three pillars of our Buddhist practice is faith, practice, and study. It does us no good to proclaim faith and fail to put that faith to daily practice.
You may have the best that medicine can provide you, good doctor, good medicine, the best facility and assistance, yet if you fail to follow the instructions given, fail to take the medications, or fail to follow the recommended treatment plan then it ought not be a surprise that the situation in your health does not improve. And the failure of improvement can not be laid at anyone’s feet other than one’s self.
I was visiting with a patient one day and we had a good conversation, she shared many things about her life, how she had become ill, the treatments she had been receiving and then sort of out of the blue she confided in me that the wasn’t taking the medicine they were giving her in the hospital. When we visit with patients our conversations are for the most part confidential, meaning what they share with a chaplain is between them and the chaplain. There are a few exceptions such as if the patient talks about self harm, or in this case reveals that she was throwing away her medications.
After I concluded my visit I went to the nursing station to chart my visit and to contact the physician and the patient’s nurse. I explained to them what the patient told me about throwing her medicine away. The nurse said she wondered how she was doing it because she stood there to watch her take the medication. Perhaps she was holding in her mouth and then spitting it back out after the nurse left. The doctor exclaimed that it made sense. The medication should have been treating her illness and she should have been getting better but she was not.
Here she had the medicine that was appropriate for curing her condition and she was not utilizing it and this caused her not to respond to the treatment. It wasn’t up to me I felt to determine what was behind her action of throwing the medicine away and she didn’t share it with me, though I did express surprise and wonderment she didn’t respond. I did know that the doctor and the nurse could devise a strategy for ensuring her future compliance in taking her medications. As a follow up the patient was able to be discharged shortly after this incident and showed complete recovery.
There are several possible reasons for not using effective tools in our tool box, most of them are not well founded and usually not in our best interest. Certainly if we say we are Buddhists then it only seems logical for us to utilize the tools of our faith, to practice as we have been instructed, and as I have mentioned previously follow Nichiren’s advice and practice of relying on medical professionals and couple that with our faith and practice.
Chih-I uses the analogy of taking up a sharp sword when being attacked by bandits. If you fail to use the sword then you will not be able to repulse the bandits and because you have the sword in your hand you will further anger them and their attack may be worse.
We could say that this in a way corresponds to only partially taking prescription medications, especially when taking antibiotics. Failing to complete a prescribed dose of medications can actually cause the condition to worsen. I’ll write more about this in other parts of these characteristics as it overlaps several.
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