How were your internship grades?
Your bedside manner?
Your success record?
Published anything recently?
So long as you don’t mock my faith to my face and I get better - I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe
Jesus, Lynn, that guy sounds like a real creep.
As for me, I’m an atheist, and it wouldn’t bother me a bit one way or another. If the doctor is good, I don’t care if he’s an atheist, a Marxist or some dude who handles rattlesnakes in church every other Sunday.
I’ve been with my current family Dr. for 15 years and I have no idea, whatsoever, what religion she is, if she even is one.
Honestly, it wouldn’t matter to me at all. Provided I felt my Dr. had my best interest in mind, and was competent I would be happy.
Isn’t it your duty to provide the daughter with the best medical care that you can? Isn’t it your duty to recommend the HPV vaccine regardless of her religion? I’d be might pissed if a doctor witheld the recommendation because of his or her perception of my religion. It’s not your morality that should influence your decision to recommend a vaccination or line of treatment - it should be your best possible medical judgment of the situation. Your morality influencing the care choices offered would be if you witheld the option of the vaccine because you thought that you would be unduly religiously insensitive. That would be a decision based on your moral judgment, not the scenario in which you go ahead and offer the option.
Gawd, but doesn’t that bring back being a teenager. 
Everything seemed to cause that effect.
Religious person here. I have never had the faintest idea what religion, if any, any of my doctors have had. (OK, except for my anaesthesiologist during that gallbladder operation. He happened to go to church with me.) Nor do I care what they think about such things. I’m sure at least one of them has been an atheist; why not?
Believer here.
I can’t imagine quizzing my doctor about his or her belief in God. Let me rephrase that - I could see it as social chit-chat, if the situation came up where it might seem appropriate. But whether my doctor is a Quaker, Catholic, Baptist, Muslim, or Buddist just doesn’t matter to me.
Frankly, I’d be more concerned with a doctor who was pushing his or her religion on me, even if it were the faith I already belong to.
Another religious person weighing in…
I don’t think your beliefs (or lack of them) would concern me as long as you respected my beliefs. For example, if I refused a medical treatment due to my religion, I would expect that you would tell me the risks of that decision but acknowledge that it is ultimately my decision. Or should I want a member of the clergy by my bedside, I would expect you treat him with deference regardless of whether or not you think he is full of it.
Only if you were a decent doctor.
Another vote for I’m a believer (Christian) but I don’t care if my doctor is an atheist, so long as they don’t lecture me on the folly of my beliefs. And frankly, if the doctor is going to lecture me on what I should believe–sharing my beliefs isn’t going to make me feel more positive about the doctor’s questionable behavior.
First of all, I would like to know if you have ever had any medical training and have you ever been licensed to practice.
The answer being in the affirmative, I would still have to say that I would prefer a fellow Christian, for the following reasons:
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I may be backsliddenat the time, and I would prefer having a doctor that would be able to pray for me if ‘medical science can do no more’ for me.
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Any doctor is deciding life/death/eternal matters while he is treating me. If my doctor sees me as being eternally expendable because he doesn’t believe in an eternity, *I * will be the one that reaps the results of *his * convictions. If he has a friend/fellow disbeliever/relative that would benefit from my kidneys or heart, and doesn’t believe in a divine retribution for cutting my gizzard out in favor of one of his loved ones at my expense, I believe that I would be ill served. Or, he may not give the ‘heroic measures’ needed if he thinks that I am just going into some void or vacuum.
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A fellow Christian could agree in prayer for me, cf. Matthew 18:20 (I’m away from my Bible, but I think the reference is correct …“If any two on earth agree…it shall be done of my Father in Heaven…”)
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I’m a Catholic and I have always made sure that my doctor is a Catholic too. That’s not generally hard because I’ll know the doctor through contact from the local parish or through recommendations from other Catholics. If I don’t know about a new doctor’s religious beliefs then I have no problem with asking that question of the new doctor. I prefer to have a doctor who practises medicine in conformity with Catholic teaching.
So, in reply to the OP - no, I’d take my business elsewhere.
Absolutely. My doctor’s religion or lack of belief in a deity doesn’t matter to me one way or another - unless they’re putting all of their faith in the supernatural and none in their training and science.
If you were a decent doctor, I wouldn’t care if you prayed to trees, or bunny rabbits, or Tupperware, or that you did none of the above. Who do you figure to be “coming out” to, and why do you think they’d find it relevant?
I’m Catholic. My doctor is Catholic, too. I didn’t know when I first started to go to her, and she never brought it up. I did know she had 4 daughters. We talk more about getting her kids a horse than we do religion. But it’s sort of comforting to know she’s also Catholic.
StG
It wouldn’t surprise me if my relatives asked, or perhaps only saw doctors that went to the same church they go to. It’s a pretty big church, I think, so likely there’s several docs going there.
If I remember, I’ll ask my Mom next time we talk.
I’m religious, and have no clue what my doctor’s views are. He’s an outstanding doctor, and I have referred many friends and my family members to him. That’s what I care about.
Speaking as a conservative Catholic…
I have no idea whether my doctor or my dentist are religious people. I’ve never asked, and they’ve never brought it up.
I’ve never asked my mechanic, my exterminator, my barber, or my favorite waiter at my favorite restaurant, either. Why would I?
I think it would be wonderful if everyone were a devout Christian- but when my car is on the fritz, I’d be quite happy to take it to a Hindu, Jew, Moslem or agnostic who can fix it at a reasonable price.
Similarly, if I have a toothache, I don’t see how my dentist’s religion has much bearing on whether she can ease my pain.
So, don’t ask, don’t tell, is my motto.
I’m Catholic. You could be atheist, Hindu, animist, or even one of those “off brand” Christians and my only concern would be that you were skilled in your profession and followed the Hippocratic Oath. (I have no idea what beliefs my current physician holds and the only reason I knew that my pediatrician was Catholic, when I was a kid, was that every pediatrician in town happened to be Catholic.)
On the other hand, based on some of the responses, here, (some of which I understand without agreement and a couple which make no sense to me), I suspect that you would be better off separating your practice from a display of your (non)beliefs. I see no problem with you joining an atheist social group, but I suspect that you would be better off not displaying your membership card or the group’s calendar of events in your waiting area.
It wouldn’t matter to me, but I bet it would matter to lots of people here in the Bible Belt. 