In a sense, this a second part to the previous post, following up the BMA decision that doctors and nurses should not offer to pray for patients. Ruth Gledhill’s post on that, together with the comments, reveal some of the heated reactions around that both from people who do and do not want to be prayed for. There are a couple of other matters arising from that range of reactions that seemed worth separating out from what I said previously.
The first is that I note how much this is being framed in Christian terms. The BMA motion was, I think, backed by the evangelical Christian Medical Fellowship, and the cases of alleged discrimination have been picked up by the even more evangelical Christian Institute. Nearly all the comments seem to share the same presuppositions. One question to those who are geting most heated under their collars is how they would feel if the boot were on the other foot. I know some fundamentalists, for example, who strongly believe that “Hindu idols” are demons in disguise. I wonder how one of them would react if their surgeon said: “I’m sure this operation will go well. Last night I burnt some incense to Lord Ganesh.” Hmm.
There is, however, a more serious and important point to be made, which is that one of the essential aspects of providing spiritual care – by whomsoever it be provided – is that it seeks to establish relationships and treat people as people. If you have no idea whether your patient would welcome or abhor prayer, you probably haven’t established a sufficient relationship to pray with them in any case, however much you might pray for them privately. It is a problem that the code of practice is so black and white as to ignore this, but where that relationship exists, the code of practice ought to be irrelevant anyway.
One of the books I recommend to anyone who wants to engage the media critically is Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science. (His blog is here.) He has, among other things, a fascinating chapter on the placebo effect. At the very least it suggests that there are a surprising number of ways in which the beliefs and opinions of patients and doctors can affect the outcomes of treatment. One chemically identical tablet may be better at treating anxiety when green, and depression when yellow. (p74). Goldacre has many other such examples. The relationship of mind and body remains quite obscure when it comes to the possible effects of belief on treatment.
In that context I can imagine a committed Christian patient being profoundly helped through prayer with an equally committed Christian doctor. I can also imagine the same patient being quite disturbed by the prayers of an equally devout Hindu, as noted above. It is quite possible that the inappropriate profession of faith might, in fact, adversely affect the treatment.
We must all suffer nowadays under bureaucratic legalese, since everybody is ready to sue anybody else for infringing their rights – notably including conservative “biblical” Christians (how ironic is that?). In that context, the BMA’s advice is probably about right. However, where medical staff succeed in establishing the kind of relationship that makes spiritual care authentic, the BMA’s advice ought effectively to be irrelevant, since both parties will know what is welcome and what is intended.
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