Table 3.
Overview of theme 1, including quotations 1 up to 9
| Super-ordinate theme | Subtheme | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| I: professional self-concept | ||
| Primacy of individual moral decision as a physician | 1: ‘However, an Imam or Islamic scholar cannot simply dictate to me what I should do, because a physician is personally responsible for his own, Islamically as well right? Because you take action as you see fit’. (Yusuf) 2: ‘I am also a human being, but I think that we as Muslim or as physician are permitted by God to make a decision’. (Amin) 3: ‘If you are treating a patient to whom the imam’s opinion is important. In that case, in the interests of the patient you have to pay heed to it’. (Anwar) 4: ‘You say: well now, what is said about this in the literature or what sort of pronouncements have a bearing on it. And, well that this or that applies to the person dear to you. We can go ahead and do this. Nothing is standing in our way. I think that this would clear up a great deal of uncertainty’. (Omar) |
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| Alleviating suffering as moral duty | 5: ‘Yes and if a patient is truly suffering physically, this is obvious from the state he is in, from his facial expressions, and then, of course, you have to do something about it’. (Farid). 6: ‘I think you have to see pain management as a separate issue. It is something detached from the stage of life a person is in. In short, if someone needs it then it must be used’. (Anwar) 7: ‘I see it as ‘li kulli dāin dawā’ (every disease has a cure, GM) [23], that’s what I think. Am I interpreting this properly? I’m not really sure. But I see a eh a disease, eh and I interpret it as such. So, if there’s a dawā’ (medicine, GM) for it, then I see it as my calling to go ahead and use it like this’. (Talha) |
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| Pain relief as professional medical task | 8: ‘Well then, as I have already said, giving a patient pain relief is part and parcel of your duties as a physician’. (Khalid) 9: ‘As far as I am concerned, as a physician I am there to put the patient first and also to protect them, and in this pain relief is a must’. (Khadidja) |
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