THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE IS SECULAR: AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY IDEA WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN MEDICINE AND RELIGION.

The aim of this paper is to draw on John Gregory's (1724-1773) professional ethics in medicine to provide guidance to physicians for the responsible management of the potentially contested boundary between medicine and religion. The paper provides a philosophical and clinical interpretation of Gregory's method of argument by persuasion: setting out complementary considerations that together invite agreement. The cumulative effect of this argument by persuasion is that a contested boundary between medicine and religion is not required by the commitment to the evidence-based, scientific practice of medicine. Gregory's legacy to us is the concept of the profession of medicine as secular, in two senses. As scientific, medicine draws on evidence and not on divinity, transcendent reality, or sacred texts and practices. There is no necessary hostility of evidence-based medicine toward religion and faith communities.