[J.C.]

To answer the main question, I must first accept the fact that religious doctors (in the USA) care less for poor patients, and based on this research alone, I can’t see how anyone can buy into this idea at all. Technically, it is impossible to answer the question posed because there is simply nothing like enough evidence to back up the claim in the first place.

First, there is the author’s main conclusion……….

‘‘Physicians who are more religious do not appear to disproportionately care for the underserved.’’

Then, there is the part you focus on…………..

‘‘Physicians who were more religious in general, as measured by intrinsic religiosity or frequency of attendance at religious services, were much more likely to conceive of the practice of medicine as a calling but not more likely to report practice among the underserved’’

Correct me if I am wrong here, but as I see it, neither of these conclusions show that physicians with a high intrinsic religiosity were less likely to report a practice among the undeserved.

Then we have to consider the research itself……………

a. The survey was tiny, and that’s significant because there is apparently no other available research in this field. It was a survey of just 2000, where only about 1,100 responded.

b. Of the 1.100 respondents an undisclosed number were offered, and paid money to complete the survey after failing twice to respond.

c. In the main study relating to the same questionnaire the author points out the existence of a still high level of confusion over the exact meaning of the word spirituality, as indeed, do I.

d. The survey attempted to cover a wide demographic but didn’t include US doctors working overseas. One could argue that a high percentage of this group are driven towards working for the undeserved. As a group they may also have strong intrinsic religiosity, and if so, this would have affected the survey too.


e. The Authors own conclusion about the survey ends……..
‘‘…… other less overt forms of response bias cannot be ruled out’’.

You chose to single out the Christian group because they make up the majority of the survey, thus disregarding much of what little data is available.

F.A. Curlin also noted………

‘‘ We found that Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim physicians in the United States are only about half as likely as those with Christian affiliations to say that they try to carry their religious beliefs into other dealings in life’’.

You say that just about every report on the subject takes the same view as yours. I doubt this is possible but let’s look at the first line of the one report that you have linked to…….


Submitted by Vidura Panditaratne on Tue, 2007-07-31 12:32.

‘‘Atheist doctors are likely to practice medicine among the underprivileged than religious physicians…….’’

I’m not simply trying to be petty here, but I couldn’t help noticing how the all important 4th word was missing. I accept that it may be a genuine typo, but lmao ,may I suggest that either the reporter couldn’t quite bring themselves to use the word ‘more’ knowing it to be incorrect or dare I suggest that it was in fact an after thought, an edit, perhaps after some gentle persuasion, it was removed. Whatever the reason, the word ‘likely’ , now on it’s own, suggests an even higher % and is therefore even more inaccurate and misleading.

This study was carried out with good intentions by a professional but I don’t believe there is any viable data that could possibly lead anyone to conclude that ‘Religious Doctors care less for poor patients’ and that apparently includes the researcher him/herself.

Having read the research, the question I would like to ask is what the % was for those who only answered the questionnaire after they were paid money, and perhaps more interesting than that, what levels of intrinsic religiosity did they claim to have. lol.

Also, we can’t overlook the 37% that chose not take part in the survey, despite being offered the money. Perhaps there is a group whose religiosity is so strong it needs to remain that private??
I don’t pretend to have a clue about such motivations but feel certain that there is no realistic way that I could conclude from this research alone that ‘religious doctors care less for poor patients’.

If I tossed a coin 1000 times and got 12 more heads than tails, would you then accept my general claim that I can throw more heads than tails . It would of course be a falsehood but the limited statistics available could be misused to show otherwise, especially if I needed them to, though, judging from this thread I suspect such claims would rightly be shot down very quickly. lol .

I doubt you would normally form an opinion based on such a low threshold of proof but if you were to, then you would be frequently mislead, just as I would have been, had I simply tried to answer the thread question without checking the evidence first. I notice your opinion has already shifted in that now you are suggesting that religious doctors should care more for the poor than their non religious associates. I would suggest that that is a step in the right direction, at least as far as the more equal statistics are concerned anyway. Even that may be hard to live up to though, considering that the other side to your argument is clearly that non religious doctors already offer more services to the poor, so it all seems to work out fine to me, but I’m sure they could all still try harder. lol