Complimentary Care: When Our Patients Request to Pray.

Prayer is viewed in modern medicine as a complimentary alternative treatment. However, to many patients, it is a source of hope and comfort. Patients, when facing illness, advanced disease, disability or death, can benefit from prayer. For healthcare providers, comfort with praying with patients can be deemed as unprofessional conduct or blurred therapeutic boundaries, particularly, when prayer is offered to patients' unsolicited by the patient or their family member(s). Therefore, it is imperative that healthcare providers await the request of prayer by the patient before prayer is initiated.