Doctor, will you pray with me?
This question is not new, but it’s taking on a new look. It’s no secret that the public is using prayer for health purposes and that prayer has been reported as the most used integrative medicine in the 2002 NIH studies (http://nccam.nih.gov/news/2004/052704.htm). However, this is not so much about whether prayer should be used, but how. What can the patient expect from his physician if he or she – the patient – desires the integrative medicine of prayer?
Kevin B. O’Reilly, author of “When a Patient Visit Includes a Request for Prayer,” reported that in the January 2003 Journal of General Internal Medicine, one in five patients were found to like the idea of praying with the doctor during a routine office visit, while nearly 30% wanted to do so during a hospital stay, and half of the patients would want to pray with the doctor in a near-death scenario. (http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/06/11/prl20611.htm)
These results show that a greater number of patients are considering prayer to be a vital part of their health care. But what about the doctor’s reaction and how do they deal with the patient’s prayer issues? The April 9, 2007 Archives of Internal Medicine noted that about 75% of the physicians surveyed said patients sometimes or often mention spiritual issues such as God, prayer, meditation, or the Bible (http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=412184). But although doctors are encountering these topics on a regular basis, doctors are giving a very low-key response to them. In a May 2006 Medical Care study based upon a nationwide survey, 17% of physician never pray with patients, while 53% do so only when patients ask (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16641663/).
With prayer being accepted within integrative medicine treatments, doctors will find more discussions arising about incorporating prayer in health care – as integrative medicine is more fully embraced as a viable option along with western medicine. The Rand Corporation is hosting an upcoming event titled “Integrative Health Care and
Medicine,” in which they promote the incorporation of integrative medicine. I found their presentation of the event very interesting: “Integrative medicine combines the strengths of conventional medicine with effective and safe approaches in complementary and alternative medicine. In the past decade, the number of hospitals offering complementary therapies has more than doubled to over 20%, and, among Americans, 38% use integrative practices in their daily lives.”
(http://www.rand.org/events/2012/07/18.html)
As doctors and health care providers grapple with what role they should play in mixing western medicine with spirituality and prayer, the literature shows that the question is not should they – but how should they? The path through this jungle of treatments to attain quality health care is not yet clear, but it will need to be built on a consideration of doctor-patient ethics, patient demand, and an understanding of spirituality. As Lewis Carroll quotes in Alice in Wonderland, “One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ She asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ Was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.’” The American public knows where it wants to go in the area of health care and the path at the fork in the road needs to include a reliance on prayer and other integrative medicines.
(Blog first printed on Blogcritics)
Donald W. Ingwerson
Media and Government Relations for Christian Science in Southern California
465 Forest Ave. Ste. J
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
CaliforniaS@compub.org
