The Doctor as Artist and Chicken Soup as Prescription

Religion and spirituality is a very natural part of life, 90% of people in the US believe in a God and most people at the very least can identify with the spiritual side to our existence! So, it is only logical to conclude that while the atheist doctor may technically be providing the same type of care, will this doctor connect to the patient who values his/her religion or spirituality as a factor in overall health and well being? My vote goes to the doc who acknowlegdges his own beleifs and is honest enough with himself to know that spirituality is important not only to patients health, but to his as well!

Fleischhauer
Many of us do not believe that religion and morality are separate things.

Good commentary for all the non-believers at:

http://draggedfromthebottom.blogspot.com/

The doctor is a medical professional who is knowledgeable. She should provide the expertise of the science she knows to your problem but letting the patient ultimately make the decision. As in any profession a doctor should have a professional side and a personal side. They can believe or not-believe in whatever so long as the information they provide is scientifically sound. I think the professor's mistake making the doctor responsible for the families job of emotional support. I don't want a doctor who comforts me, I have loving family for that, I don't want her reasoned advise tapered by sentiment. This is an unfair burden on the doctor.

Can anyone of sound mind imagine that a doctors treatment e.g. type of treatment / non-treatment of you would be based on his religious beliefs.

If this occurs, then we might as well kiss our freedoms goodbye, and make peace with the radical Islamics, because what is the difference between our society and theirs?

If this sort of thing really occurs, then we are falling into a garbage pit where religion - based on stories from an age of almost universal ignorance, which has been either the reason or the lie or generated the mentality for justifying most wars has truly become the nightmare of our lives.

And if you wonder how these things come about, all you have to do is look at the involvement of the White house and their lockstep republicans in the Schiavo affair. That sad scene was simply a question of whether the husband or the parents were the legal guardians of a brain dead for many years woman. Of course while we talk about the right to lifers, lets remember our almost 3700 soldiers killed in a war based on lies. Lets remember the estimated many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who would have been alive under Saddam, monster that he was, whose lives were stolen by the same right to life people in the white house and congress who set off that conflagration.

Can anyone deny that we, Iraq, freedom of and from religion has been hurt terribly by the high crimes and misdemeanors of the white house and the right wing American Taliban wannabees? And now are they invading the privacy of the doctor patient relationship and the oath one takes when they become an MD.?

I'm not exactly sure of the author's thesis, but morality, to me, supercedes religion of any faith--no matter what the circumstances.

I'm not exactly sure of the author's thesis, but morality, to me, supercedes religion of any faith--no matter what the circumstances.

" california condor:

"An erudite essay and 20 comments and interminable mumbo-jumbo about "faith" and "art" and "healing" and no one so much as mentions "placebo effect". Miracles can be wrought by pills or shamans or witches or even doctors if they have the talent of bamboozling the patient sufficiently so that the placebo effect can kick in. Patients themselves can achieve self-cures if only they delude themselves artfully enough."

The 'placebo effect' is a crude encapsulation of accidental manifestations of *exactly* what yer 'witch doctors' *do.*

Placebo effect is good. Placebo effect is our friend. Placebo effect will not set a broken arm or replace a fubared gall bladder. But it's very powerful.

'Placebo' is Latin for 'I will please.' Placate.

It's greeted with contempt, as trickery or manipulation, by people who really think the rational mind understands what keeps us alive.

It's part of what keeps us alive.

We're social creatures. Wired that way. We are not islands. We live together. It's important for the sick to have someone *communicate that they're worth saving.* This is something often used to try and coerce people into believing certain interpretations of certain things.

But we're not just thinking people, our experience does not really come from a book of laws. Where we touch the spirits is *not* rationally-reducible, as much as I think that *especially* means we ought to get the reason right.

I'd be the last one to say that the spirits are merely figments of our minds, but, I'm nowhere near above palming some gristle out of someone's navel and then sending em right to a Western doctor.

It's definitely about our minds. No doctor with experience would dispute that.

This doesn't mean that a particular dogma can interpret what's much more simple.

We need to care for each other. We can. We do.

Any other religious crap that tries to interpret it into scorning the 'unclean' just gets in the way of both spirit *and* medicine.

You wanna talk about placebo effect, well, how bout the 'Damnabo' effect? Some doctor decides someone really doesn 't deserve to live, or it's an act of charity to 'let' them?

What effect do you think *that* has on patient health?

Even, as one columnist said, 'You're unclean, but I'll condescend to keep your meat body alive?'

People pick up on more than they think.

Funny thing is, Christians 'In the sh--' as we call it, don't much care for orthodoxy. What they need to know is, 'Help exists.'

Credit that to praying on metric tons of Bibles if you like, but *that* is everyone's birthright.

Or we're no humans at all, and in that event, spirits can't help us.

An erudite essay and 20 comments and interminable mumbo-jumbo about "faith" and "art" and "healing" and no one so much as mentions "placebo effect". Miracles can be wrought by pills or shamans or witches or even doctors if they have the talent of bamboozling the patient sufficiently so that the placebo effect can kick in. Patients themselves can achieve self-cures if only they delude themselves artfully enough. Was that what Jesus was talking about when he was walking on water and Peter tried it and sank, "O ye of little faith". Mindsets affect measurable physical parameters like blood pressure and presumably immune systems as well. No one knows how much. Cases of multiple personalities in a single human body affect that body in different ways, but no one does research on how that happens.
And no one puts the "placebo effect" on an altar and worships it. Surely it's worth both research and worship.

This isn't to say that there aren't good doctors of any and all faiths, and if they do take something good out of it, maybe it helps them be better doctors.

But in public discourse, this isn't about that... It's about people using their positions as doctors or even pharmacists, to impose their ways on people they don't even know... and get them to pay for the damage. (or be a captive audience)

I don't think anyone can seriously argue that this is *right.* They simply try to say it's a 'greater good.'

The nice thing about doctors' professional oaths is that there *is* no greater good on the job than caring for patients according to professional guidelines.

I say 'Informed Consent' and full disclosure.

If they say, 'Your Sex Life Up For Judgement And Possible Deceit or Denial of Care Here,' then great.

For the disclosure to people of my religion, who have their religious rights, too, add, 'Oathbreaker.'

Jewish chicken soup? He should try my Italian. :)

Can't put it in a can. The garlic should be fresh. :) (My recipe has temporary medicinal value which can really give someone a leg up on an illness by getting them ahead of dehydration and getting some nutrients into the system. :) )

Personally, I find the Professor's perspective a welcome change from the persistent issue, 'Should radical Christians be able to deceive patients and bar them from getting the care they want, claiming 'moral objections.' '

As someone who's often been called upon to work the *spiritual* end of caring for people who may have real medical or mental health issues, I would find it *utterly unethical in the extreme* if I didn't apprise people who came to me for help of the possible medical help and refer them to such care when possible.

This is only complicated by a scenario when people may be presumed insane if they believe in the Gods or spirits while having, say, a thyroid crisis, or, Gods forbid, real mental health issues:

It's not uncommon for them to be presumed schizophrenic (or in fact possessed) *for* their religion by Christians who think anything but Christianity *is* insanity and medicate people with medical conditions that go undiagnosed because of a presumption they're crazy. ...and needing proselytization, which is often the last thing someone needs when having trouble.

Not that uncommon, really. In the underclasses where I've worked, all too often people are there from a combination of some form of disability combined with rejection and ostracization, usually combined with outright abuse from their families simply for seeing the world a different way: being queer, finding the Gods, or rejecting the abuse in the first place.

I often find myself in a position where I have to refer people to professionals, not knowing if some well-meaning or fanatical Christian is going to end up doing more harm than good.

But not telling them their options is not on the table.

It should be at least as clear to doctors, who, let's face it, aren't *there* for whatever spiritual foo they think they have. They're there cause they're supposed to be licensed professionals.

Period. Be professional, or get out of the profession.

When 'medical professionals' blithely take it upon themselves to presume that pushing their religion on the sick can't possibly be harmful, even to people who may have been abused with the very same imagery, then we're getting pretty far from 'first do no harm,' whatever someone's idea of their religion is supposed to give them permission to do.

These are biases which all too often can lead to malpractice.

Violations, abuse, misdiagnosis, and a lot of human misery.

Guess who gets to help people cope with the effects of *that.*

Jay: **It is the summer BBQ season, and there are several good recipes in the Jon Swift cookbook.**

And we can eliminate the problem of poverty at the same time.

It is the summer BBQ season, and there are several good recipes in the Jon Swift cookbook.

Bit of indigestion from all those burnt baby offerings, eh, Ba'al?

This is one of the more appalling essays that the Professor has written.

sorry about the double post. I've never had that problem with my macs, just this pc. Hmmm...

"Another way of formulating this question is to ask, “Is an atheistic doctor better than a religious one -- just because he or she is an atheist?”

I agree with you Jay, this is not a reformulation of the question at all. Mr. Stevens-Arroyo is side-stepping the issue, giving himself license to talk airily about the artfulness of medicine.

The real issue, the only issue here, involves the rights of the patient. Should patients be empowered with the most complete set of information and full decision-making power over their own fate? Or is it ok to manipulate those decisions by withholding information from them, at the whim of others?

Personally, I can’t imagine a physician attempting to manipulate my right of self-determination, for any reason (let alone a religious or moral one). Some may object to the word “manipulation,” but an intentional omission is exactly that.

"Another way of formulating this question is to ask, “Is an atheistic doctor better than a religious one -- just because he or she is an atheist?”

I agree with you Jay, this is not a reformulation of the question at all. Mr. Stevens-Arroyo is side-stepping the issue, giving himself license to talk airily about the artfulness of medicine.

The real issue, the only issue here, involves the rights of the patient. Should patients be empowered with the most complete set of information and full decision-making power over their own fate? Or is it ok to manipulate those decisions by withholding information from them, at the whim of others?

Personally, I can’t imagine a physician attempting to manipulate my right of self-determination, for any reason (let alone a religious or moral one). Some may object to the word “manipulation,” but an intentional omission is exactly that.

As a Christian Humanist of the Roman Catholic variety, I think Secular Humanist or Naturalist should be just fine.

Viejita -- I agree ... To me, atheist is a term of convenience because everyone recognizes it (and I use it myself for that reason), but it's just not very precise about the philosophies that are atheistic, so that's a problem when you are discussing the nuances of belief systems. I prefer naturalist for myself, but not everyone knows what that means. Secular humanist is another alternative for some. I refuse to use the coined term "Bright".

Think of the word "gentile". Jews use it for non-Jews and Mormons use it for non-Mormons ... it's a handy term for "the others not like us". Would a Presbyterian, Catholic, Shia Muslim, Wiccan, or Buddhist use the term "gentile" to describe themselves? Or would they use the precise term that actually decribes their belief system? That's kind of how I feel about "atheist".

Jay
You are absolutely right. You are not the only one who is troubled by those on this site and elsewhere who lump "all religious people" and "all non-religious people" into just two fantastic and amorphous categories. I, too, would appreciate the use of more specific terms than "atheist," "believer" and even "humanist." In the case of Stevens-Arroyo it may just be an inconvenient shorthand, but I know for a fact that some here lump those groups together because they really don't see a difference.
What I meant about being boring is that it is often the use of imprecise language that gives the rest of us a "hook" to delve into what is really at stake.

Viejita del Oeste:

True, the definition problem comes up often, but I don't get tired of pointing it out. Well, maybe a little. I don't find precision in language boring at all. Maybe it's the scientist in me.

Is a doctor who believes in philosophical naturalism better than a religious one? Again, I say no, not necessarily. One could argue that naturalism might make a medical researcher a better scientist, but again I think that you can't generalize too much.

However, I want naturalism to be front and center when a doctor is trying to diagnose and treat my malady. Even a deeply religious person would likely agree with me on that, que no?

Jay, we have run into this definition problem before. There are people who merely do not include a deity in their view of the world, and there are those who firmly believe in the non-existence of G-d.
On the one hand it would be nice if we all used language the same way all the time, on the other hand it would probably be boring.
Mary Cunningham, thanks for the clarification. I thought I might be getting mixed up, which happens more and more frequently.

"Another way of formulating this question is to ask, “Is an atheistic doctor better than a religious one -- just because he or she is an atheist?” My answer is: “No.” Two issues need to be resolved about obligations to patients, and neither of them is dependent on whether the doctor believes in religion or atheism."

I don't think that is really a reformulation of the question, it's a separate question. But I agree with the answer of "no." As an atheist, I don't seek out atheistic doctors. I want a doctor who will give me the best medical care and advice possible, and his beliefs are beside the point. If his beliefs get in the way of providing medical care or information, then we have a problem.

By the way, I question that anyone "believes in atheism." Atheism is an imprecise decription of a worldview which is not theistic and (usually) rejects supernaturalism, but is not itself a belief system.

Prof Stevens-Arroyo has written that he is a Catholic. IMO he seems comfortable in his Catholicism--about the only panalist who is. It is possible to be both deeply spiritual *and* Catholic--it's called charismatic. The 'Christian' & 'Evangelical' category at the end of his post was a mistake.

Is Stevens-Arroyo evangelical? The site categorizes him that way. If so, I give him credit for his strong cultural understanding of the Catholic mind-set.
On this post, I have nothing to add. You all have said what needs saying (at least so far).

Faith and science are worlds apart.
Science is about learning and discovering and searching
for the best way to understand reality,
and how best to put that information to good use.
Religion is afraid of knowledge and change and progress,
because its ideas are rooted in antiquity.
The great surge of scientific knowledge
which has revolutionized our world since the Enlightenment,
happened despite objections by the pope and other supernaturalists,
who fought science tooth and nail for hundreds of years.
and are justifiably threatened by progress of any kind
which eventually creates doubters and atheists
and signals the eventual demise of superstition,
the churches,the mosques,the temples,and the gods.

That is all fine and dandy, Professor, but I think any doctor who has placed restictions on him/herself based on his/her personal religion should be forced to explain those to his patients upfront.

I prefer a physcician who will explore, introduce, and explain ALL treatment options available, so that I, the patient, can make an informed decision.