In the morning before she
goes into surgery, Dr. Susan Winchester takes a moment to pray and gain spiritual strength.
It is her way of reminding herself that,
in addition to her skills and training as a surgeon, there is a spiritual dimension to her practice.
"I believe that I have to offer
the patient a centered, whole person," she said. "So my husband and I try to make the practice of having silence and quietness and
just speaking the name of Jesus and thinking on him first thing in the morning. I try to draw into myself and into the place where
God really is, there in quietness and strength. And I try to be there when I`m operating."
Dr. Winchester, who said she does not push
her beliefs on any patient, is not alone in believing that there is more to surgery than is physically apparent.
"We are surgeons,
in our medical training, we are taught a more pragmatic way," said Dr. Jordan Stoll, an orthopedic surgeon in the Baptist Health System,
"We’re taught anatomy and physiology and all those mechanical things on how the body works. We’re not taught the spiritual side of
it."
But Stoll said not all healing is subject to medical reasoning, nor is preparation a matter of repeating surgical procedures
until they are mastered.
"I’ve experiences scenarios with my own patients where I cannot explain their good outcome," he said. "I`d
have to say that it was a miracle."
The piety of physicians is as old as the practice of medicine itself.
Seventeenth-century English
surgeon John Woodall implored his colleagues to prepare their patients for the possibility of death by seeking diving intervention.
"Forget thou not also thy dutie to crave mercie and help from the Almighty. For it is no small presumption to dismember the image
of God," Woodall wrote.
Maarten Ultee, a professor of history at the
"Since ancient times, healing the human body has been tied to
religious faith. There is a well-established image of Christ as the physician of the soul," he said. "Surgeons have even been seen
as godlike figures."
The mystery of healing lends to the belief that a divine influence must be acting in a person`s recovery, said
Ultee, who recently gave a lecture on religion and surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Sterne Library.
"There are
plenty of people who still place great faith in the power of religious healing," he said. "And certainly there are also people who
regard the work of medical doctors as nothing short of miraculous."
Ultee noted that surgeons in past centuries interpreted their
craft in the context of their time, explaining their heavy emphasis on religion in the healing process.
"It was natural for them to
use the common currency of religion, politics and history in the age of Renaissance and Reformation," Ultee said.
Medicine today is
more often viewed through a humanistic prism.
"It’s difficult to get a handle on the spiritual, to get a grasp on the spiritual aspect,
because there are so few easy to quantify that," Stoll said.
A study at
Religion-affiliated hospitals such as the Baptist Health System hospitals and
"I think it has a lot to do with healing, a sense
of a there’s-someone-holding-my-hand attitude," said Dr. Jim Isobe, general surgeon with Baptist Health System. Isobe, who grew up
a Buddhist, said a factor in his conversion to Christianity was medical miracles he witnessed in his practice "where someone would
have an operative procedure and come out with a stroke and by the next morning the patient would be recovering almost miraculously."
"I could not explain something like that," Isobe said.
Stoll also said he offers to pray with patients and his staff before surgery.
"The focus of my prayer is that God will guide and direct our thoughts, words and deeds and he will watch over the entire medical
staff and that he will watch over the welfare of the patient. I recognize that I’m simply his instrument that he is the great physician,"
he said. "Invariably, I`ll have patients and family members say how important that (prayer) was for them."
Dr. Winchester, a general
surgeon who specializes in breast care at St. Vincent`s Hospital, said she believes those with a belief system have a better chance
at recovery than those who do not.
"I believe that the immune system is enhanced when a person is so centered that they believe there
really is meaning behind life and meaning behind their life," she said.
She also said a person’s spirituality is an important part
of the holistic approach to helping a patient recover.
"As soon as you separate body from mind or emotion or spirit, you end up not
providing the complete healing experience that someone needs," Dr. Winchester said. "The patient, their relationship with God and
their relationship with the physician, when all those three things come into oneness and are being used together for someone`s healing,
I feel everything goes better. I feel they respond better to all sorts of treatment."
Recently, Dr. Winchester operated on Elizabeth
Englen, who was being treated for breast cancer. During biopsy tests on Nov. 13, Mrs. Englen, 60, said she noticed Dr. Winchester
with her head bowed, praying under a mammotest, a table on which biopsies are performed. Mrs. Englen said it is reassuring to have
a doctor with strong faith.
"If you have your doctor who puts their trust in the Lord for their skills then they’re praying with you
for the operation to be a success and be a complete recovery to the glory of the Lord," she said. "I have my complete trust in the
Lord and Dr. Winchester that I will have restoration of health."
Dr. Winchester emphasized, however, that she does not push her religion
on her patients.
"I find out what they want in the way of support and include that in what I do," she said. "If the patient is someone
who doesn’t have a spiritual belief system, then you can’t offer them that type of support. But you do offer them emotional support."