I was prompted to consider if I have been accepting the traditional stereotypes in relation to health care when I read Bob Clark’s blog, which I’ve reposted here. Bob is the Christian Science Committee on Publication for the state of Florida in the USA. People in the medical profession are really starting to examine how patients are thinking about their health and wholeness and what effect spiritual practices such as focused prayer have on healthy outcomes. Thanks for this thought-provoking account, Bob!

I love it when stereotypes dissolve and reveal a new, more accurate view. Christian Scientists are sometimes stereotyped as being prohibited by their church from any interaction with the medical profession. Not true, but still a widely held perception.

Some people stereotype medical professionals as part of a medical-pharmaceutical monolith, allied with insurance giants to provide only an impersonal, assembly line approach to managing health dilemmas. I was pleased recently to find convincing evidence that this too may be an unfair stereotype.

A previous guest-blog posted here, Signs of changing times…a health care transformation, drew an interesting and thoughtful response from a local health care professional, Dr. Stacey Robinson, who responded, “The longer I practice medicine, the more I appreciate the extraordinary power of the mind and spirit on physical health.” A quick look at her website revealed that this professional’s practice of family medicine is part of what she describes as “a growing number of physicians who are breaking free of the traditional health model”, an alternative to “insurance based health care” and part of a “revolution in primary care medicine”.

Further conversation revealed a concept of health that went way beyond a single-minded focus on body mechanics to a genuine acceptance of the need to examine how patients are thinking about their health and wholeness and what effect spiritual practices such as focused prayer have on healthy outcomes.

I was encouraged to find that health care professionals in my own neighborhood are “breaking free of the traditional health model” and are interested in exploring the intersection of prayer and health. I was also reassured to find that some stereotypes, when examined carefully, do dissolve and reveal a different view.