Bench to Bedside
I find debates about the compatibility of science and faith interesting yet largely unproductive. These skirmishes tend to be theoretical disputes waged on abstract battlefields, whereas the real battle rages on in the trenches. If the combatants genuinely wish to engage with one another, they must do so in the real world, where their ideas have consequences.
I want to share the perspective of someone occupying the breach between the entrenched religious and scientific factions. I am the medic caring for the collateral damage in the combat zone of this worldview battle. I hear the scientific, theological, and philosophical ordnance whizzing over my head. Yet, I don’t have the time to admire its trajectory because I am too busy tending to the spiritually and physically wounded in this theater of war.
I work in a place where the worldview rubber meets the road—a place where scientific limits are reached and corpses are sent to the morgue, a place where families bury the dead in the back of their minds, only to be perpetually haunted by their ghosts. I view my patients as neither evolutionarily unfit nor afflicted by God but as individuals desperately in need of both science and prayer. Each patient encounter reminds me that medical care goes beyond the boundaries of either science or faith; both must be present at the patient’s bedside if true healing is to occur.
In my world, scientists aren’t allowed to enter the neonatal unit and tell parents that their extremely premature baby is evolutionarily unfit, and pastors aren’t allowed to stand next to the isolette, unplug IVs, turn off ventilators, and tell everyone that all we need to do is pray. To the scientist, I say, listen to the cries of the ghost in the biological machine, and to the pastor, I say, pray with me, but don’t pray without me. I’m surprised more physicians don’t weigh in on this discussion because they straddle the worlds of physical disease and spiritual brokenness and know better than most that to ignore either one borders on medical malpractice.
I fear that the divide between faith and science will widen as technology advances. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) threatens to reduce physicians to technicians, compelled to adhere to the strict algorithmic dictates of their digital overlords. Physicians are already so overwhelmed by a wealth of data that they don’t have the time to consider the toll of spiritual poverty. Sadly, the art of medicine has been found wanting because it doesn’t meet big business’s technological and financial metrics.
One of the most important concepts in medical research is “bench to bedside.” It serves as a reminder to scientists that theories, drugs, and technologies developed on the laboratory bench must be translated into medical care delivered at the patient’s bedside. Similarly, religious ideas formulated on the desks of theologians must move from the pulpit to the pew to provide healing for those who are spiritually wounded. Science and faith, rather than combatants in a battle of ideas, are comrades in arms, tending to the spiritual and physical needs of cherished beings created in the image of God.
*The painting is titled “The Doctor” and was created by Sir Luke Fildes. It hung in my dad’s office at home. I love this painting because, even as an intensive care physician dependent on technology, it reminds me that medicine is an art that uses colors from both a scientific and spiritual palette.
God's Screenplay 