McDonald-Agape Fellow Ben Frush consulted on debate over prayer in healthcare
A February MedScape column by physician Andrew Wilner about his discomfort with prayer in some clinical settings generated active discussion and a reader poll showing that 70% of respondents expressed varying degrees of approval of health care professionals praying with their patients. MedScape Medical News followed up on the story on April 24, quoting Ben Frush, MD, KIE’s 2024-26 McDonald-Agape Fellow, on the nuances of incorporating prayer into medical care.
The article’s author, Alicia Ault, reports that Dr. Frush said “I don’t think [prayer] should be out of hand dismissed as categorically inappropriate” but that “it has to be something that’s done thoughtfully, carefully, and respectfully” and should “seek to avoid any degree of perceived coercion or over-proselytizing.”
“Context is key, he said. Frush identifies as a religious clinician but said that if he has a routine interaction with a patient who is not gravely ill and with whom he does not have a prior relationship, ‘I would not think those circumstances conducive to necessarily engaging in prayer, as a matter of course,’ he said.”
“Frush said that on the very few occasions he had prayed with a patient, however, ‘it seems like it’s accepted as something that’s either benign or well-received.'”
The article provides a sampling of reader comments ranging from those approving of prayer to those who find it inappropriate. One reader is quoted as saying “I don’t go to religious leaders for medical care, and I don’t go to medical providers for spiritual care.”
Ault explains that “‘Religious clinician and ethicist Frush agreed that patients don’t “primarily come to physicians seeking spiritual care.’ That doesn’t prevent a clinician ‘from attending to the spiritual components of patients they care for,’ he said. But he added that ‘by praying with the patient, as a physician, you’re presuming to be a spiritual expert,'” an observation with which Wilner agreed.
Ault concludes her article noting that Frush and Wilner also agree on the need to be mindful of “the power dynamic between doctor and patient. ‘A physician has a degree of power, based on his or her expertise,’ said Frush. ‘The physician needs to be incredibly thoughtful and certainly never seek to abuse or coerce that to their advantage,’ he said. He also suggested making use of a hospital chaplain when a prayer might seem appropriate, at least in the inpatient setting. They have training and a kind of cultural competency that is not typically in the physician’s toolbox, said Frush.”
Dr. Frush completed medical school at UNC Chapel Hill. He trained in internal medicine and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he was chief resident. He then completed fellowship in palliative care and hospice medicine at UNC Chapel Hill. He is a former fellow in the Theology, Medicine, and Culture fellowship at Duke Divinity School and his research interests lie at the intersection of medicine, theology, and ethics, especially questions involving medical training and end-of-life care.