"But ma'am…if you don't do this, you're going to die," I said in a last moment of desperation. Here I sat in the ICU with a 45-year-old woman with no psychiatric history, who was refusing life-saving surgery for what seemed to be no apparent reason. When all else failed, psychiatry was called. "There's nothing you can say to convince me. I don't trust any of you." The surgical and medical team were at a loss and so was I. After speaking with her husband, he offered a simple but surprisingly effective solution. "Doc…we have to call in the big guns here. I need to call our church. She trusts some of the elder women there and I think they can help." I was admittedly skeptical. Here was a team of veteran doctors and nurses pleading with this woman to have lifesaving surgery and we got nowhere for days.
Could her faith community be the missing link?
Indeed, it was.
Once we collaborated with the patient's faith community, we were able to build an alliance with the patient that seemed impossible before. This forgotten but powerful ally was hidden in plain sight. They were able to bridge this gap that stemmed from several unfortunate encounters with healthcare in the past along with a misconception in her understanding of her own faith.
