Faith, Family, and Medicine: The Amish Approach to Healthcare
It is a commonly held belief that medicine is limited to science. But if this is the case, why do healthcare systems vary around the world? Healthcare systems in countries such as India and China prioritize natural healing methods, such as Ayurveda and herbal medicine. By contrast, medicine in the United States is heavily based on scientific research and biotechnology. Healthcare systems are heavily influenced by the culture of the surrounding community. Let’s take a look at the Amish, an Anabaptist Christian cultural community living in the United States and Canada. Maintaining their traditionality and shaping their lives around their faith since the 1600s, the Amish value family and mutual support. In this blog, we’ll look at an interesting case study of the Amish community to see how their emphasis on religion, strong community and family relationships, and limited use of technology influence hospitals’ medical practices when working with members of the Amish community.
The Amish community largely emphasizes religion and community relationships in day-to-day life. Community bonding often takes place at church, where community members pray together and organize youth gatherings afterwards. This translates into mutual support between Amish families for medical needs as well. Instead of relying on government aid programs such as Medicaid and Social Security, Amish families prefer to pay directly for their medical care and services through church-supported healthcare and financial aid programs, including natural remedies such as herbs and folk medicine.. For example, Amish Hospital Aid, established in 1969, helps Amish families pay for medical care.
Hospitals serving Amish populations have adapted to these cultural beliefs in order to deliver the best quality care possible. For the Amish population, modern medicine is extremely foreign, as Amish medicine often relies on natural and religious remedies. Therefore, hospitals serving Amish populations have tied up with Amish church-supported healthcare programs, such as the Amish Hospital Aid, in order to make modern medicine less foreign for families. Additionally, health care providers spend significant time getting to know the families they work with to establish trust and build relationships that Amish culture values. With greater trust comes enhanced quality of care, as Amish families are more willing to try modern techniques and take advice from their healthcare providers.
A great example of this was Geisinger Hospital, which actively works with Mennonite and Amish patients. A major problem was the number and severity of complications occurring in home births for Amish women, which were turning out to be even life-threatening. Instead of imposing a modern solution on midwives, Geisinger doctors Elissa Concini, MSN, and J. Bringman, M.D., learned from midwives how they conduct home births and then respectfully worked with them to find ways to naturally relieve pain during a home birth.
The Amish community also places strict restrictions on technology. It is a common misconception that the Amish believe technology is evil; however, the reality is that the Amish simply want to preserve their cultural identity through a “plain” way of life that puts humility, faith, and community before personal desires. The Amish believe that freely using technology causes assimilation into mainstream culture, leading to a loss of heritage and traditionality. Therefore, the Amish preclude the usage of the radio, television, public electricity networks, etc. Their technological restrictions also extend to healthcare treatments, as they refuse to use the modern biotechnologies commonly used in health care in the United States. Hospitals serving Amish populations have adapted to this limited use of technology and incorporate as much traditional medicine as possible, such as in the case of Geisinger Hospital. However, some illnesses require the usage of technology to treat, which can become a limiting factor when working with Amish families. This is why healthcare providers work so hard to build strong personal relationships with Amish families: so that Amish families trust them in using modern technology.
I'd like to leave off with the idea that medicine is not just science; it's also culture. The Amish community is one example of how healthcare systems vary based on the cultural needs of the surrounding community. Although the science behind treatments for various illnesses may be the same, how treatments are delivered, accepted, and financed is not. I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out in other communities and healthcare systems worldwide.
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