The Influence of Spirituality on Muslim Physicians and Their Care of the Patient

Emerging questions and controversies in medical ethics continually propel research in this field. This vast body of literature has expanded to include more minority perspectives, including perspectives of followers of Islam. Current researchers in the broader field of Islamic bioethics have encouraged the development of the subfield Muslim bioethics, which pertains to ethics in the practice of Muslim physicians. This emerging area of study seeks to understand how Muslim practitioners utilize their faith in caring for the patient. This thesis discusses important work in the field of Muslim bioethics today and incorporates results of questionnaire-based, ethnographic interview research conducted with Muslim physicians in Texas. This research contributes to Muslim medical ethics by exploring how Texas-based Muslim physicians connect their spirituality to their practice. It argues that the cohort of American Muslim physicians interviewed connect their spirituality to practice through a general set of convictions, giving them a sense of peace after negative outcomes and a sense of duty to the patient to provide quality care. This research provides new avenues for future study by demonstrating the connections between Muslim physician spirituality and duty, empathy, autonomy, and physician specialty.