Religion isn’t often talked about in medicine, but should it be? I asked New York psychiatrist Dr. Robert Klitzman, author of “When Doctors Become Patients,” to tell us about his experiences with patients, prayer and faith. — Tara Parker-Pope

By Robert Klitzman, M.D.

“I will pray for you,” a senior psychiatrist told my patient.

His comment surprised me. I was in training, and the patient was a petite Latina woman who had remained despondent despite medication, psychotherapy or anything else I did. Would he really pray for her?

depression doctorDr. Robert Klitzman. (Charles Manley)

Occasionally, as a trainee, I would spot a hospital chaplain, but at the medical school where I was trained and others, nothing about religion or spirituality is ever taught. Science is supposed to be logical, rational and objective, while spiritual beliefs are irrational, subjective, elusive and hard to describe. Not surprisingly, research suggests that doctors tend to be less religious than their patients.

But then, a few years ago, I became a patient myself and began to look at these issues differently. My sister died in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks, leaving me stunned and depressed. As I recovered, I began to wonder about other doctors who had become patients. I ended up interviewing more than 50 of them. I soon learned that when doctors get sick with serious disease, they also tend to reconsider their spiritual beliefs.

Several doctors I spoke with were religious before they became patients, but they were admittedly even more so once they faced serious illness. Others changed more dramatically. “Patients used to ask me to pray for them, and I’d pooh-pooh it,” one elderly physician told me. After he got sick, he “realized how important prayer was.”

Often these doctors expressed a hodgepodge of beliefs, drawing on the organized religion in which they were raised, and adding elements of Eastern philosophy or New Age beliefs.

That said, some physicians weren’t changed by illness, remaining skeptical and disillusioned with organized religion. “I see it helps my patients,” one doctor told me. “I wish I had it in my life more…But I don’t.” It could not always be willed.

Some doctors felt that prayer can directly alter the physical process of healing through God’s intervention. My view is that prayer and faith give vital strength and motivation that can help patients cope and continue to fight.

Does it matter whether you and your doctor share the same spiritual beliefs?

I would argue that your doctor’s personal beliefs don’t matter. What matters is that your doctor recognizes that your beliefs are important to you. Training cannot convince doctors to become more spiritual. But it can, I hope, make them more aware of the range of views that their patients have. Religion is a huge area that many doctors don’t know much about, yet this is what our patients are thinking about. I hadn’t appreciated the extent of that, until I myself became a patient.

Thinking back to the senior psychiatrist who told my patient he would pray for her, I now realize how astute he was. I saw her as a little, depressed woman. What he picked up on was that Catholicism would be important to her. That was the way to connect with this woman who so far had rejected our efforts to help her. At the time, to me, it seemed an odd thing to say. In retrospect, it was quite empathic.

As an intern, alas, I was usually too busy to discuss these issues with patients — not yet aware of their significance. But I hope now that future doctors will do better. It will help patients. And their doctors, too.

Dr. Klitzman is an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. Tara Parker-Pope is on vacation.