Jainism in Healthcare: My experiences with Jainism as a medical student
It was the first week back after winter break in 2nd year. We were onto the 4th of 6 lectures for the day, and I was already tuning the lecturer out. Who thought that a full day of lectures on medical ethics would be a good idea? I was getting ready to just power down completely when my ears suddenly perked at the mention of Jainism. “Even if a Jain was to be attacked by a bear, they wouldn’t fight back.” The lecturer was discussing how humanity is defined, and what makes us different from any other animal. Many beliefs argue that a deity has created humans and given them souls, thereby proving human life sacred and should be protected. However, some exceptions to this belief are paganism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Native American belief. She stated, “Jainism does not allow violence, even in self-defence.”
For many of the 400 students attending that lecture, this was their first time learning about Jainism. Now, all they knew about this small religion was that Jains don’t fight in self-defence. There was no background, no rationale, no explanation about why Jains acted this way and their understanding behind it. Beyond my friends and a select few others in the lecture, they had no context to the central beliefs that underpinned that statement and why Jains would not fight back. There was space for the lecturer to expand – to fill these gaps for the other medical students to learn more about Jainism so they can better treat Jain patients going forward. Instead, the statement was met with confusion and some giggles from the back of the lecture theatre, from those who had misunderstood and found this belief silly.
This poses a risk of misinformation and disbelief by other medical students not familiar with Jainism. If this is all a student knows about Jainism, they may walk away from the lecture thinking: “If Jains can’t harm someone even in self-defence, how are they meant to be doctors? Parts of the job, like in surgery, involve ‘harming’ the patient initially to make them better.” Without adequate contextual information, Jainism is prone to being misunderstood and oversimplified.
This misunderstanding is particularly jarring in medicine, where ethical frameworks already exist that closely mirror Jain principles. In medical school, we are taught about the 4 pillars of ethics in medicine: beneficence, autonomy, justice, and non-maleficence. All 4 pillars define medical ethics and are often at interplay with each other when discussing medico-ethical scenarios. While arguments can be made about how Jainism aligns with each of these pillars, I believe the non-maleficence parallels the Jain fundamental of Ahimsa.
Non-maleficence is defined as doing no harm – very close to Ahimsa’s meaning on ‘non-violence’. While these are not the same (and there are certainly are instances where one can be upheld without the other), I find the similarities striking and often find myself drawing back to my religion when facing medico-ethical scenarios.
Ahimsa is not about inaction – it’s about advocacy for the least harmful path. Accordingly, every clinical decision made is about weighing up the risks vs. the benefits. For example, if you have a chest infection, the doctor will consider the risks and benefits of providing antibiotics. If they suspect the infection to be viral in nature where the infection will pass by itself, the antibiotics will do nothing to help; rather, they open the door for the patient to experience side effects from the antibiotics. If they do suspect bacteria to be the culprit, it’s worth taking that risk of experiencing side effects, with the benefit of not letting the infection progress and cause further damage.
Similarly, I can counter the previous point of ‘How can a Jain be a doctor?’ While surgery, medications, and other treatments may inadvertently harm the patient, Jains are weighing up that risk to provide a greater anticipated benefit, just as any other doctor would. Ultimately it comes down to one thing in both medicine and Jainism: intent, or ‘bhaav’. As long as any healthcare professional has the right ‘bhaav’ behind their actions and are actively weighing up the risks and benefits, there is no moral dilemma about whether a Jain can practice medicine.
That lecture made me reflect not only on how Jainism is taught, but on how I carry my own beliefs into clinical spaces. Rather than viewing my religion as something separate from medicine, I have come to see it as a framework that reinforces careful, reflective, and intentional practice. As I progress in my medical training, I find myself increasingly aware of the assumptions we make—about our patients, our colleagues, and even ourselves. Jainism, through the principle of Ahimsa and the emphasis on bhaav, continues to guide how I approach ethical dilemmas, reminding me that good medicine is not defined by the absence of harm, but by the intention to minimise it while acting in the patient’s best interests.
Veer Sheth
JSF University/Outreach Officer
No responses yet