A recent television news program broadcast a segment about a surgeon who prays with his patients. When does he pray with them? Not several weeks prior to surgery, for example, in an office visit when the decision to proceed with surgery is made. Not several days prior to surgery during routine pre-hospitalization medical testing. Not even several hours prior to surgery.

The surgeon asks if its OK to say a prayer when patients are gowned and on the gurney ready to go into surgery. Put yourself in the patients position. Would you feel free to say no to a physician dressed in surgical scrubs who is about to have your life in his hands, who is about to take a scalpel to your body?

He could simply pray for his patients and do so in private. Thats something that undoubtedly is quite common and laudable. But he doesnt. This surgeon prays with his patients.

Welcome to the brave new world of religion-and-health where science, medicine, faith and ethics coexist in a potentially explosive mixture. Its all part of a concerted effort to make religious practices part of clinical medicine. But before we go any further down this path, we should answer three central questions about these efforts: Are they based on good scientific evidence? Do they represent good medical practice? Are they good for religion?

In each case, the answer is no.

Most research studies that claim to show how religious involvement is associated with better health fail to rule out other factors that might account for the relationship, or mistake chance findings for real ones.

In at least two ways they can cause harm rather than benefit to patients. Study after study shows that doctors have so little time in their interactions with patients that they routinely fail to follow established practice guidelines for preventive care and for treatment of chronic disease, even though they are strongly supported by scientific evidence. If physicians spend their limited time with patients engaging in spiritual inquiries, they will have even less time to address depression, smoking cessation, weight control or diabetes self-care factors that are demonstrably related to disease. In this way, bringing religious matters into clinical medicine will deprive patients of adequate medical care.

The inclusion of religion in clinical practice can harm patients in other ways too. When physicians make claims about the benefits of religious activities, patients can feel manipulated or even coerced into engaging in religious behaviors that are not their own, merely to avoid displeasing their doctors. In a country that values religious freedom as much as anything else, coercive religious practices are simply unacceptable.

And physicians risk transgressing other ethical boundaries too, when they tell their patients that religious practices can beneficially influence their health. Asserting that such activities promote health can lead patients who do poorly to question their religious devotion and to experience guilt and remorse over their supposed religious failures.

Finally, and perhaps most important, efforts to connect religion and medical practice are bad for religion itself. Bringing religion into the laboratory subjects it to the reductionism of scientific materialism, stripping away all elements of transcendence. The recent report that religious experience is based on the neurochemistry of the serotonin system in the brain is a perfect example of how religion is trivialized by studying it scientifically.

The methods of science have little or nothing to contribute to ethics, inspiration, morals, beauty, love, hate or aesthetics, according to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. These are vital elements of civilized life and are central to the concerns of nearly every religion. These essential domains of human existence are beyond the means of science to address. For religion, on the other hand, they are central.

Attempts to closely connect religion and medicine unwittingly imply that religion has no strengths of its own and instead needs the methods of science to establish validity. Proponents forget the advantage of religion over science that Tyson describes. In these efforts, they demean rather than value religion.

For many, illness raises important religious and spiritual concerns, providing comfort to some and anxiety to others. No one disputes the significance of these concerns but recognizing that they arise in times of illness doesnt mean that doctors should take them on as part of their responsibility. These are matters for patients, their families and the clergy.