example, physicians may agree that the

example, physicians may agree that the experience of depression can be treated legitimately by antidepressant medications, referral to a psychiatrist, or referral to a counselor whose practice is rooted in a specific religious tradition. Yet our research suggests that the religious characteristics of physicians strongly influence which of these options they would recommend in a given case’. Controversies over a particular medical intervention often represent deeper unspoken disagreements that, unfortunately, science cannot settle. For example, controversies over the use of stimulants to manage childhood behavior disorders, or the medicalization of social anxiety, seem to reflect disagreements about more basic questions: What brings human happiness? Which moods and behaviors should be considered normal parts of human experience and which should be considered abnormal? What sorts of suffering should we try to alleviate? What leads to disordered behaviors? What resources (social, psychological, spiritual or otherwise) are best suited to addressing disruptions in individuals’ mental and emotional states? How does modern medicine fit into our response to these experiences? Although physicians may not ask or answer these questions explicitly, they implicitly answer them in their responses and recommendations to patients. So, for all that is hoped for in ‘scientific’ and ‘evidence-based’ practice, clinicians must in the end act as practical moral philosophers, making judgments about how best to pursue the goals of medicine for a particular patient in a particular context, all things considered. Among those things to be considered are moral valuations about which religions and other moral 143 Page traditions have much to say, but about which medical science remains silent. Caring for the patient as person So far I have suggested that religions provide a vision that animates care of the sick and a moral framework that guides the application of medical technology. Religions make another contribution by fostering practices that nurture the human capacity to care for patients as persons rather than as mere objects. Patients commonly complain that their physicians treat them as mere objects or specimens rather than appreciating and attending to them as unique persons. This problem has always plagued the profession. To learn how to heal, the novice physician must learn of patients as representing abstract general types and classes. She must learn about coronary artery disease and hematuria before she can begin to interpret Mrs. Smith’s chest discomfort and Mr. Jones’s red urine. These abstractions allow knowledge of when and how things happen, and that knowledge guides technological interventions that may bring healing to the body. These abstractions also help doctors objectify their patients’ humanity enough to violate social norms that operate in every other social situation, such as asking patients to expose their nakedness in vulnerable positions, or cutting patients apart in hopes of making them whole. As long as the process does not go too far, scientific detachment serves to make our concern effective. Yet the collective experience of both patients and physicians suggests that such detachment usually does go too far and occurs too easily. As a result physicians treat patients as mere objects and HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021389