Medical Malpractice

Are atheist doctors more compassionate that religious one?

http://pressesc.com/news/80931072007/atheist-doctors-more-likely-care-poor-religious-ones Researchers from the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital report that 31 percent of physicians who were more religious—as measured by "intrinsic religiosity" as well as frequency of attendance at religious services—practiced among the underserved, compared to 35 percent of physicians who described their religion as atheist, agnostic or none. "This came as both a surprise and a disappointment," study author Farr Curlin, MD, said. "The Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist scriptures all urge physicians to care for the poor, and the great majority of religious physicians describe their practice of medicine as a calling. Yet we found that religious physicians were not more likely to report practice among the underserved than their secular colleagues." Where in the heck do they get their morality from if not religion??

Public Comments

1. Just goes to show that religion and faith is not Transformative as claimed.
2. I'm not surprised, I could imagine some self-righteous hypocrites thinking to themselves, "I went to school for this, I'm not giving my services away".
3. Never go to an atheist doctor
4. I have seen born-again fundies here every day attacking the poor and the immigrants. They preach their holier-than-thou dogma but when it comes to actually helping monetarily they would rather attack.
5. Actually I find that religion gives people the belief that they can put standards on their morality.. that one is less than because of a belief. I worked for a very Baptist person and he believed that people who did not believe his beliefs were not of the quality he was, and deserved bad things to help "teach them to believe what he believed." All and all a screwed up perception. I asked him why he didn't help people who were not of his religion to show them that people of his religion were caring, and he said he would rather be around like minded people. Makes no sense to me. Thanks for the research info!
6. If atheists were majority, an atheist doctor would seem more compassionate to most. This is the very definition of compassion.
7. Why would a religious or nonreligious status make someone more or less compassionate? Stupid question. You shouldn't believe everything you read.