The Secularities of Medicine: When Interpretations of Reality Clash
Amanda Berg, PhD (c), St. Louis University
Medicine is generally considered a “secular” practice. Although medicine often has direct religious ties as Candy Gunther Brown suggests in The Healing Gods, the religious roots of medicine generally go unacknowledged in the United States.[1] Other scholars like John Milbank and William Cavanaugh suggest that the secular itself has a religious structure because it dictates perceptions of reality.[2] The implications of this perspective, as others have pointed out, leads to the many secularities of medicine rather than one monolithic secularity.[3] Using the work of these scholars, I wish to examine two particular secularities in medicine: the physician-patient relationship as founded on sacred trust[4] and billing.
In this paper, I will posit that the sacredness of the physician-patient relationship is disrupted by a competing doctrine of financial sacredness from the billing department. If bioethics wants to continue to push for trust within a realm of sacred relationship, then the bureaucratic arm of the medical machine also needs to examine its doctrine. In other words, medicine has a divided hermeneutical lens and competing secular doctrines that disrupts its own sacred relationships. Sacred trust within medicine must be built on physician-patient-billing ground.
In addition to the aforementioned scholars, I will also draw on anecdotal experience. I, and others I have talked to, have had billing issues and conversations with insensitive billing coordinators that have led us to consider changing medical practitioners. Thus, in order to examine the “sacred trust” of the physician-patient relationship, we need to look beyond simply the clinical encounter and examine the competing doctrines of medicine as a whole.
[1] Candy Gunther Brown, The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
[2] John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006). William Cavanaugh, “Does Religion Cause Violence? Behind the Common Question Lies a Morass of Unclear Thinking,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin (Spring/Summer 2007): https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/does-religion-cause-violence/.
[3] Joseph O. Baker, Samuel Stroope, and Mark H. Walker, “Secularity, Religiosity, and Health: Physical and Mental Health Differences Between Athesits, Agnostics, and Nonaffiliated Theists Compared to Religiously Affiliated Individuals,” Social Science Research 75 (September 2018): 44-57.
[4] The sacredness of the physician-patient relationship is well-established by other scholars including: Elizabeth Chaitin, Ronald Stiller, Samuel Jacobs, Joyce Hershl, Tracy Grogen and Joel Weinberg, “Physician-patient relationship in the intensive care unit: Erosion of the sacred trust?” Critical Care Medicine 31, no. 5 (May 2003): S367-72; Bob Rayburn, “Managed Care and the Physician/Patient Relationship” Orthopedics 27, no. 4 (April 2004): 360-61; Tom Price, “A Sacred Trust: Health care Reform Begins with Keeping the Doctor-Patient Relationship Strong,” Ripon Forum 42, no. 1 (Feb/Mar 2008): 22-4.
In this paper, I will posit that the sacredness of the physician-patient relationship is disrupted by a competing doctrine of financial sacredness from the billing department. If bioethics wants to continue to push for trust within a realm of sacred relationship, then the bureaucratic arm of the medical machine also needs to examine its doctrine. In other words, medicine has a divided hermeneutical lens and competing secular doctrines that disrupts its own sacred relationships. Sacred trust within medicine must be built on physician-patient-billing ground.
In addition to the aforementioned scholars, I will also draw on anecdotal experience. I, and others I have talked to, have had billing issues and conversations with insensitive billing coordinators that have led us to consider changing medical practitioners. Thus, in order to examine the “sacred trust” of the physician-patient relationship, we need to look beyond simply the clinical encounter and examine the competing doctrines of medicine as a whole.
[1] Candy Gunther Brown, The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
[2] John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006). William Cavanaugh, “Does Religion Cause Violence? Behind the Common Question Lies a Morass of Unclear Thinking,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin (Spring/Summer 2007): https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/does-religion-cause-violence/.
[3] Joseph O. Baker, Samuel Stroope, and Mark H. Walker, “Secularity, Religiosity, and Health: Physical and Mental Health Differences Between Athesits, Agnostics, and Nonaffiliated Theists Compared to Religiously Affiliated Individuals,” Social Science Research 75 (September 2018): 44-57.
[4] The sacredness of the physician-patient relationship is well-established by other scholars including: Elizabeth Chaitin, Ronald Stiller, Samuel Jacobs, Joyce Hershl, Tracy Grogen and Joel Weinberg, “Physician-patient relationship in the intensive care unit: Erosion of the sacred trust?” Critical Care Medicine 31, no. 5 (May 2003): S367-72; Bob Rayburn, “Managed Care and the Physician/Patient Relationship” Orthopedics 27, no. 4 (April 2004): 360-61; Tom Price, “A Sacred Trust: Health care Reform Begins with Keeping the Doctor-Patient Relationship Strong,” Ripon Forum 42, no. 1 (Feb/Mar 2008): 22-4.