Would you like your doctor to pray with you? The very question will seem odd to most people. Only a few of us will ever have thought of it as a possibility.

And yet, when they are asked about it, many Americans say they would welcome this activity as a support in times of illness. In one survey, an astounding 64 percent of those polled went beyond desiring such collaboration. They spoke of obligation, answering that physicians should pray with their patients.

Even larger numbers of Americans believe that doctors should at least talk about spiritual issues with those whose care is entrusted to them. Since it has been shown scientifically that faith, by reducing stress, can help a person to recover from illness, the importance of such discussion becomes evident.

And yet, many obstacles get in the way of this kind of dialogue. One leader in the field of spirituality and medicine, Dr. Dale Matthews, says that, in four years of medical school, only once did he ever hear the word “religion” mentioned and that once in a belittling context.

In a survey of medical residents done in 1998, 85 percent said they felt uncomfortable talking to patients about dying. Since spiritual issues usually become sharpest at this time of crisis, these residents would presumably find it impossible to pray with these patients.

These facts and many more emerged from a conference held by Harvard Medical School last week in Boston. Organized by the well-known cardiologist Dr. Herbert Ben-son, the forum was called “Spirituality and Healing in Medicine” and attended by hundreds of physicians and others interested in the connections between body and soul.

The number of participants is a sign of a notable change in attitudes on the part of MDs and other medical practitioners. Over 61 medical schools in the United States now offer courses on spirituality in medicine. To hear conference leaders talk, one senses that barriers between faith and science are rapidly breaking down like the Berlin wall between East and West.

For those physicians who want spirituality to become part of their practice, Dr. Matthews proposed three steps, under the acronym WEB,  that can be used with patients.

• First is Welcome, whereby the doctor makes the patient feel accepted and reassured. The physician may wish to make explicit that he or she welcomes people with all kinds of beliefs.

Another part of this welcoming process is to invite the patient to talk about such beliefs. Rather than keeping them off limits, as has been common practice, the doctor is happy to solicit discussion of important spiritual values.

Going further, the physician may wish to acknowledge the presence of God but only after some sign that this would be welcomed by the patient.

• The second step in the WEB process is Encouragement. This would include supporting the patient’s spiritual practices and pointing out how helpful they can be to healing of body and mind. It might even extend to encouraging people not given to spiritual activity to consider getting involved in it.
• Finally, the physician can give the patient a Blessing. This would probably not be a formal gesture such as a priest or minister might make. The doctor might simply say something like “God bless you,” or perhaps, “Shalom.”

Probably this kind of behavior on the part of a physician, when first encountered,  would come as a shock. We would perhaps wonder what got into our doctor to make him or her act like this.

Most people never see their doctors as people for whom spirituality may be important. We forget how many of them are religiously active themselves. Also we probably do not realize how many doctors have become aware of scientific research that shows the benefits that come to our physical selves through prayer and other spiritual activities.

If the spiritual life is important to you and you have a comfortable working relationship with your doctor, you might try taking the initiative. I brought up the subject myself this week with my ophthalmologist during a routine eye exam. She readily acknowledged that she had never raised spiritual questions in her practice.

But, on further reflection, she acknowledged that stress could clearly have an influence on the health of our eyes. To her knowledge, there has been no research on the subject but she now thinks it might be worth looking into.

Richard Griffin