Singapore : Doc asked patient to pray

Doc asked patient to pray

by Alvin Choo Weng Kee (The Straits Times Forum, 4 Oct 2005)

The letter, 'Should teachers seek to convert pupils?' (ST, Oct 1), reminded me of an incident at a specialists' clinic in a hospital some years ago.

I was consulting an oncologist on the outcome of a CT scan. Grim-faced, he told me the bad news: my cancer had returned.

Fully aware that I was not a Christian, the doctor asked me to kneel with him and pray. This made me even more distraught because the conclusion was that conventional medicine had run its course and divine intervention was needed.

At that critical moment, I felt that faith and medicine should not have been dispensed in the same prescription.