Faith vs. Medicine
God vs Docs
Sometimes people can portray medical situations as ‘God vs. the Doctors.’
People of faith may feel at odds with the clinical team.
Have you ever heard people say things like this?
“The doctors don’t have the final word.”
“God will decide when I am going to die, not the doctors.”
“People all over the planet are praying for my dad. I know that prognosis can’t be true.”
While these feelings are genuine, they lead to a dangerous dichotomy. It can seem as if it’s some kind of competition where only one (the doctor or God) can win.
But when we gather around a hospital bed, painting the situation as God vs. the Doctors doesn’t help anyone.
Some people think that most physicians are anti-faith or atheists. Of course, that’s not true. A 2005 study discovered that doctors in the United States are people of faith at a rate that is nearly identical to the rest of the population.
When a doctor tells you that she or he thinks you are going to die—they hope they are wrong, too.
Doctors don’t wish for patients to die.
Quite the contrary.
Dr. Atul Gawande is quite vulnerable on this point in his book, Being Mortal. Physicians usually err on the side of doing too much to save a person’s life and being too optimistic, not the other way around. Estimates of patient survival given by physicians (e.g., “you have six months to live”) are heavily influenced by the optimism of the physician.
In one study, researchers discovered that while the physicians’ prediction of survival (of cancer patients) averaged 42 days, actual survival averaged only 29 days. That means that the physicians were holding out more hope than warranted, not less.
Many believe this overestimation of survival is the result of the emotional struggle many physicians feel when discussing patients’ prognoses with them. Imagine being the person who tells a family that their loved one is going to die in less than a year or less than a month.
The point is this—no matter the faith, the people skills, the tone, the education, or anything else—the doctor wants the best possible outcome for every patient in every situation. They are hard-wired to want this so much that they usually cannot bring themselves to admit how long (or short) they think you will live.
It does not help anyone to paint the situation as God vs. the Doctors. If I am a patient in a hospital bed with a scary diagnosis or injury, I need to feel that everyone is on my side—my family, my faith community, and my clinical care team.
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