Story Highlights
Recent study found many Americans believe in divine intervention in a medical crisis
If faith is important to you, it's OK to ask for a doctor with similar convictions
If you believe in miracles, make sure your health providers know it
By Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Medical Correspondent
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The doctors, nurses, pharmacists and technicians gathered around her son's crib, their faces grim. Pamela Gorman knew what they were thinking: Her son, Christopher, was about to die.
Christopher was just a few days old and had a rare blood infection and fungal meningitis, a brain infection.
"I could tell in their eyes they had no hope for my son," Gorman said. "They told me to prepare for his death. They told me he might not make it through the night."
Gorman never believed the doctors. In fact, she did something she thinks annoyed these men and women of science: She prayed. She prayed all the time.
"They made me feel ridiculous for praying so much and so hard and leaving it up to God," said Gorman, who lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho. "But I told them my son not surviving was not an option."
When he was a month old, Christopher left the hospital. He's been healthy ever since, she says. He turns 3 next month.
"It was a miracle," she said. "There are just things doctors can't explain. Doctors are not in control of everything. There's stuff that happens every day that they can't explain."
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A new study finds that many Americans have that same kind of faith. In the study, 57 percent of randomly surveyed adults said God's intervention could save a deathly ill family member even if physicians said treatment would be futile.
However, just under 20 percent of doctors and other medical workers said God could reverse a helpless outcome.
The study was published last month in Archives of Surgery and is one of many to show a "faith gap" between doctors and patients.
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/09/11/ep.faith.medicine/index.html
