Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/190

 Now, in such a case as this (and the number of them must be very large indeed) the parish clergyman has a great scope for quiet, useful work. Let him urge the patient not to dwell on his supposed condition, but go at once to a competent practitioner and find out what exactly (if anything) is the matter. The clergyman will find that (if he has the patient's consent) the doctor will make no difficulty about affording him the fullest information about the physical condition of the patient, and from their co-operation the happiest results may be expected.

(3) Conversely, there are many cases where a sympathetic doctor would be only too glad to be in touch with a parish clergyman. Occasionally we get at the hospital a note from a clergyman, saying that X. Y. is to call at the Out-Patients' Department to-day, and that the writer would be glad to know in confidence what is the matter with him. I only wish we had more. If there is no objection raised by the patient, there is no difficulty whatever about entering into the fullest particulars, and in those cases (and they are far from infrequent) where the patient complains of 'worries,' a sympathetic adviser on the spot will probably do more to bring about an improvement in the physical condition than all