Islamic Perspective Of A Doctor

A healthy and fit well-being is a gift from Allah form His creations. A healthy body and mind help us a lot to perform duties in our daily life especially ibadah. We as a Muslim know the important of taking care of our body because we do not own our bodies, Allah is the one who really own it. Our body is just given to us as responsibility so that we can devote ourselves to the Almighty Allah S.W.T. As a human, we tend to take our health for granted until we get disease one day later. So, in order to take a good care of our health we need to control eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, think optimistically and avoid alcohol and drugs. People are also advised to go for regular medical check-up and ask advices from doctors. Doctors really work hard to help people to live in healthy form preventing and curing them from any disease. Medical practice is considered as sacred in Islam, and the doctors are rewarded by God for his good work.

Islamic scholars have agreed that the study and practice of medicine is an obligation that falls upon Muslims to have sufficient numbers of followers to practice (Fard Kifayah). Fard Kifayah defines a communal obligation in Muslim legal doctrine. Fard al-kifayah is a legal obligation that must be discharged by the Muslim community as a whole, if enough Muslim member community discharge the obligation, the remaining Muslims are freed from the responsibility before God. However, if a communal obligation is not sufficiently discharged, then every individual Muslim must act to address the deficiency. Science and technology is one of the knowledge that are important in Fard Kifayah. Humans can know the secret of the greatness of Allah Almighty through the Holy Quran. There are a lot of verses in Quran explaining about science. During the scientific development of Muslim civilization, they had produced a lot of famous Islamic scholar and scientist such as Ibn Sina, Al Razi, Al Zahrawi, Ali Ibnu Abas and a lot more. Ibn Sina or else known as Avicenna is an Islamic scholar with many fields of knowledge which are medical, philosophy and poetry. He wrote the book of doctoral science, 'Al -Qanun Fi Al-Tib' and the book is a very influential medical work. Thus, it becomes the responsibility of every Muslim to participate in and play a role as a member of the community in preventing the destruction of existing and future generations.

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Furthermore, responsibility of a doctor is to make a diagnosis and finding the cure of a disease. Based on Imam Sadiq (AS), “the one who avoids curing of an injured person, would be associated with the one caused he injury. Since the injurer intentionally harmed the wounded person, and the one avoided his/her treatment did not intent to cure him, thus he/she intended his/her destruction”. This means, if a doctor neglects his responsibility and not working hard to help curing the patient’s disease, he would be the cause of any harm that inflicts the patient. As we know, as a human, we need to do our best to help but Allah is the one best healer. From surah Al Isra’ verse 82, “And we send down of the Qur’an that which is healing and mercy to the believers, but it does not increase the wrongdoers except in loss.”

As a Muslim doctor, they accept the fact that Allah is the healer and that the doctor is only an agent. It is an established fact that such spiritual conviction does improve the psychological state of the patient and boost his morale, and thus help him overcame his physical weakness and sickness. There are many examples where faith plays an important part in the process of healing. A Muslim doctor must make his faith the backbone of his healing career.

Moreover, Muslim doctors must follow the codes of ethics in the decision making. Be professional and try to involve patients in the decision making on the treatment option. First of all, the doctor need to give information about the health status to their patients. Patients need to understand and know every risk of treatment then the doctor should consider the patient’s opinion and then try to offer the best option to him/her, being always observant of their well-being and satisfaction. The Muslim doctors should make decision based on Islamic rules and regulations. Nowadays, there are diverse daily controversial problematic issues on which he is supposed to take a stand, for instance birth control, abortions, opposite sex hormonal injections, transsexual operations, brain operations affecting human personality, plastic surgery changing physionomy, extra-uterine conception and more. So, in general the doctor need to have a preliminary knowledge of what is reprehensible and what is prohibited based on Fiqh and Shari’ah. It is not difficult nowadays because there are a lot of books and references regarding medical queries in Muslim.

To be conclude, the role of the Muslim doctor is briefly to place his profession in service of his religion. Muslim and non-Muslims doctors are all similar in their technology and scientific points of views. But, what make them different to each other is the Believe in Oneness of Allah. They put a total submission to Allah after every tasks and works done. Also, when it comes to practice, the Muslim doctor need to bound by particular professional ethics plus his Islamic directives issuing from his belief. In fact, the Muslim doctor tries to live his Islam by following its teachings all through. They are also is expected to behave differently on some occasions and to meet greater responsibilities compared to other non-Muslim doctors. Thus, it is very important to have Muslim doctors in the community because being a doctor according Islam, is not only a religious responsibility but also a social and humane necessity and a moral obligation. This is why, every doctors need to be clear and have passion in their work so that they are working harder to make diagnosis and help in curing patients , not only because of the financial benefits of the work or the social position that might be attached to the job.

Dental treatment is an essential treatment for all people at least twice a year which is every 6 months. Regular dental visits is important to reduce the risk of dental caries and periodontal disease with the help of professional cleaning by the clinician besides taking care of oral hygiene well at home. There are a lot of dental treatment options that can be chose by the patient with the guide of the clinician which are scaling and polishing, fissure sealants, restoration, root canal treatment, dental implants, dentures and extraction.

Dental treatment is needed especially when someone has problems or pain with their teeth, but some Muslims are still in doubt to go for dental treatment during fasting months despite of the pain come from their teeth. During fasting, Muslims abstain from food, drink whilst going about their normal daily activities. Therefore, it is important that healthcare professionals are aware of how fasting can affect routine treatment, and also how the treatment plan can be modified to patients' benefit.

Poor understanding and appreciation of the practices by the medical professional may lead to compromise in treatment and inability to provide good service for the patients. There are some general principles that can be followed by the health professionals in treating Muslim’s patients during fasting which can help them to maintain their fast without breaking it. For example, the clinician should take note that fasting Muslim patient cannot eat anything means they cannot take any medication through oral route unless degree of illness, and if the illness is 'harmful' or life-threatening, they are advised to undergo treatment because under Islamic law, preservation of life has the greatest priority. The clinician also can use another option which is give the medication by injection. However, the use of IV fluids for nutrition is prohibited while fasting as it energizes the fasting patient.

Extraction is one of dental procedure that need to be done which is the removal of teeth from the dental alveolus in the alveolar bone. Extractions are performed because of wide variety of reasons which are some of them because of unrestorable deep caries affecting more than half tooth structure, orthodontic purpose, impacted third molar with pericoronitis sometimes, periodontal disease or dental trauma especially when they are associated with pain. However, patients that suffers pain in their teeth are still afraid to go for dental extraction as they think it might break their fast. Not only, they extraction itself, the injection of local anaesthesia also tend to give doubt to the patients in order to proceed with the dental extraction treatment. First of all, the patient need to inform their dentist first that they are fasting to make sure the health professional can aware with their state of fasting at that time.

Local anaesthesia is important before dental treatment such as extraction, caries free before restoration and root canal treatment. Local anaesthesia is used to numb the feelings in a specific part of the body. This prevents pain during surgical procedures. Local anaesthetics produce anaesthesia by inhibiting excitation of nerve endings or by blocking conduction in peripheral nerves. This is achieved by anaesthetics reversibly binding to and inactivating sodium channels. The local anaesthetic is typically lidocaine, although this is typically just used for simple tooth removal procedures. Local anaesthetics injection is an acceptable form of treatment for a fasting patient. The injection mentioned does not affect the validity of the fast because it is not a kind of food or drink, and the basic principle is that his fast is valid. The content of the anaesthetics is not a fluid that can energizes the fasting patient. However, the dentist should be aware that some Muslim patients may be reluctant to undergo it. According to Islamic fatwa's by scholars, administration of local anaesthetics for dental treatment does not invalidate the fast.

Next, dental extraction is ready to get performed after the site of needed is already feels numb and anesthetized effectively. In general, tooth extraction will not break the fast. However, in view of the practical procedure of extracting a tooth, there is a strong possibility of some substance, such as water from the cleaning dispenser, going down the throat, thus invalidating the fast. The clinician and patient need to make extra care to make sure there is no swallowing of any fluid from the cleaning dispenser and any blood coming out form the tooth socket. Therefore, it is advisable to postpone the tooth extraction till a later date. However if there is severe need, one should try his utmost best that the blood does not enter the throat. If blood enters the throat, the fast will be nullified if the amount of blood exceeds the amount of saliva or if both are equal. Similarly, if one can perceive the taste of blood, the fast will be nullified. If the content of saliva is more, then the fast will remain intact. If the fast breaks, only Qadha (making up) of the fast will be necessary.

Some Muslims patients may wrongly perceive that some dental treatments and preventive procedures invalidate the fast even though most dental treatment will not break the fast. This includes scaling, restorations, and extractions. However, some patients may not be willing to carry out certain procedures due to different perceptions and way of thinking. Within the month of Ramadan, most forms of prescribing are allowable, with the notable exception of oral medication. Even with acceptable types of medication, the dentist will often find open or hidden reluctance to comply with the regimen prescribed. The healthcare professional must be aware of this and should alter their prescribing practice or advice accordingly. It is also important, when treating a fasting patient on long-term medication, to ensure satisfactory compliance with the normal drug therapy. With fasting patient in dental practice, it is important for professionals to be aware of which treatments the individual considers acceptable and offer treatment accordingly.