Doctors face religious conflicts at hospitals

Obligation to patients at issue
By Jennifer Harper
Wednesday, April 14, 2010

New research reveals that one in five primary care physicians who practice in religiously affiliated hospitals say they have faced "clinical ethical conflicts" when treating their patients in those facilities, where end-of-life care, abortion and other practices may be restricted.

"Religious hospitals represent nearly 20 percent of our health care system," said Dr. Debra Stulberg, author of the new study and instructor of family medicine and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago.

"Yet we know little about how religious policy affects the care doctors give to patients. This study is the first to systematically ask physicians whether religious hospital policies conflict with their judgment. We found that for a significant number of physicians they do." the rest