RX: Religion?

Doctors are not as religious as their patients. . . . True.

Doctors are horribly irreligious. . . . False.

A new study is out on the religiosity of doctors and it finds that the picture is . . . complex.

The study wasn’t the gold standard of research as it relied upon doctors filling out and mailing in questionnaires, though it got a surprisingly high return rate (about 2/3rds of those sent the questionnaires returned them). Still, the results showed doctors were more religious than anticipated, though not quite as religious as their patients.

76 percent said they believe in God and 59 percent said they believe
in some sort of afterlife. That compares to 83 percent and 74 percent
of the general population.

Researchers say that although more than 80 percent of patients describe
themselves as Protestant or Catholic, only 60 percent of doctors
describe themselves the same way.

5.3 percent of doctors are Hindu vs. 0.2 percent of nondoctors 14.1
percent of doctors are Jewish vs. 1.9 percent of nondoctors 1.2 percent
of doctors are Buddhist vs. 0.2 percent of nondoctors 2.7 percent of
doctors are Muslim vs. 0.5 percent of nondoctors

Surprisingly,

Although
doctors were less likely to believe in God or an afterlife, the survey
showed that 90 percent of doctors attend religious services at least
once a month compared with 81 percent of their patients.

Many doctors (particularly among Christians, Buddhists, and Mormons) said that their faith influenced their medical practice, though others (particularly among Jews and Hindus) did not.

GET THE STORY.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin