In her recent book Amazing Grace, author Kathleen Norris tells of a discovery that her family made about her maternal grandfather, a physician.

“My mother says that she and her mother were surprised to find, after my grandfather died, several prayer books included in his medical library. It seemed that when he traveled to farmhouses by buckboard (and later by Model T), families would ask him to say prayers over the sick and dying.”

How many Americans nowadays have ever experienced their doctors praying for or with them? I certainly have not and I strongly suspect that you have not either.

And yet there’s evidence that many of us would welcome physicians’ prayer. At least one survey shows an astoundingly large percentage of those polled saying that MDs should pray with their patients.

This statistic, by the way, was one of many fascinating facts I learned last week at “Spirituality and Healing in Medicine,” a conference conducted in Boston by Harvard Medical School. This conference, attended by hundreds of people from around the country, many of them physicians, made the case for doctors taking an active interest in the spiritual life of their patients.

Dr. Herbert Benson, the well-known Harvard cardiologist, in his keynote talk, set the context of the conference in the research he and others have done over the past thirty years. This research has demonstrated the remarkable effects that spirituality can have on our physical well-being.

Dr. Benson describes his findings thus: “The research established that when a person engages in a repetitive prayer, word, sound, or phrase and when intrusive thoughts are passively disregarded, a specific set of physiologic changes ensue. There is decreased metabolism, heart rate, rate of breathing and distinctive slower brain waves.”

These changes are termed by Dr. Benson “the relaxation response.” They help to reduce stress, a strong influence in many illnesses. Thus the relaxation response has been shown to be an effective therapy in such problems as hypertension, chronic pain, and some cancer symptoms.

More and more medical practitioners are catching on to the power of the spiritual in healing. Some sixty medical schools now offer courses on spirituality. The days may have passed when a medical school graduates could say what Dr. Dale Matthews said at the conference, namely that in four years of medical school, he only heard the word “religion” mentioned once.

The same Dr. Matthews takes as established fact that “religious factors are neglected in the practice of medicine, despite patients’ wishes to have them ad-dressed.” Among other evidence, he cites a 1996 poll whereby 63 percent of adults surveyed said that physicians should talk to them about their spirituality but only ten percent had actually done so.

To make it easier for doctors to raise the subject from the beginning Dr. Matthews has developed an approach that doctors can use to bring spirituality into their dealings with patients from the beginning. Using the scheme WEB, he offers a three-part outline that can serve to raise what might be sensitive issues.

The first step is for the doctor to welcome the patient and make it clear that, whatever the person’s faith or lack of it, he or she is fully accepted. The patient can then be invited to discuss faith issues and God’s presence can be acknowledged.

Secondly, the doctor can encourage patients “to continue healthy religious beliefs and practices.” For example, if the patient has joined a prayer group, he or she can be encouraged to stay a part of it.

Finally, the physician can give an informal blessing to the patient. That might come in the form of such statements as “God bless you,” or, simply, “Shalom.”

This kind of advice, I am aware, is not going to sit well with some physicians. To them, it may seem an intrusion into territory not their own. And even if they would like to do it, many will probably feel ill at ease.

If, as a recent survey suggests, the great majority (85 percent) of medical residents feel very uncomfortable talking about death with dying patients, then surely the prospect of praying with patients would also be difficult.

In a visit to my dermatologist this week, I raised with him the question, not of praying with patients, but of asking about their spiritual life. This physician acknowledged not having done so in any explicit way but he showed strong interest in my question.

Though raised as a Catholic, he no longer goes to church. However, he retains a strong attachment to many of the religious ideas and values of his younger years. He respects Dr. Benson’s work and thinks they might be worth exploring in his own medical field.

I feel grateful to this doctor whom I do not know very well for having made it comfortable for me to raise unaccustomed questions.

Richard Griffin