DR. MARC SIEGEL: Miracles unite Americans across political divisions through shared faith

At a time of great political division, we need common ground to bring us back together. Most of us believe in miracles. A recent Gallup poll revealed that three in four Americans identify with a specific religious faith – a majority as Christians, and nearly half say that faith is very important in their lives. We can use this to unite us as a country.

When we learn that someone has miraculously survived a cardiac arrest — as NFL safety Damar Hamlin did on a football field in Cincinnati in 2023, or Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., did on a baseball field following a gunshot back in 2017 — the last thing we think about is whether they are a Democrat or a Republican.

As I describe in my new book, “The Miracles Among Us,” in Rep. Scalise’s case, the doctors who performed the combined interventional radiological and surgical procedure to repair his badly torn iliac artery after transferring 50 units of transfused blood both said this was the most miraculous event of their careers. They also believe that Scalise’s “gratitude to God” played a direct role in his recovery.

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Scalise told me, “I never felt fear. Once I put my life in God’s hands, an unbelievable calm and ease came over me. My mind went to a different place. Whatever was going to happen that day was up to God, and he got me through, and I felt Him throughout my recovery.”

Several of the subjects in my book report that when experiencing a miracle, a calm comes over them knowing that their lives are in God’s hands. 

Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief of surgery at NYU, experienced seven cardiac arrests before having a heart transplant. “In these experiences, I feel a connection to a vastness, a connection to something much bigger than my experiences on earth. I start becoming aware of my own breath, and at first, I’m not sure what the sound is. And just before the moment when all my thoughts and memories are coming back, I am conscious of transcendence that’s way beyond anything that’s human or of this planet Earth we are on. I feel calm and serene. I feel my soul right before I am in my body. As I am waking up there is this overlap of awareness of this vastness and then knowing that I am a living being.”

Several of the subjects in my book report that when experiencing a miracle, a calm comes over them knowing that their lives are in God’s hands. 

Montgomery says this experience helps him to be at peace with who he is, and has enabled him to be a far more effective doctor and surgeon. 

Jordan Grafman, a neurophysiologist at Northwestern University, has recently discovered via functional MRI imaging and brain lesion mapping that belief in miracles relies on similar networks in the right side and the front part of the brain as partisan political belief does. Moreover, both politics and spirituality are experienced similarly and lead to a desire to be part of a common community — suggesting one can sometimes replace the other. 

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Indeed, I do not believe a rigid separation of church and state is good for either patient care or for society. Why should a deeply religious physician leave his or her vestments or tallis at the door of the hospital or medical office? Why shouldn’t a pious physician pray with his or her patients the way that Congressman Scalise’s doctors did?

Consider that the acknowledgment of a higher being who is in charge may lessen a person’s desire to fear or contest another. “Fear God, not your fellow man” is the lesson from both Scalise’s and Montgomery’s experiences. It is a common theme in many religions– and it can help to ease the anger that fuels our politics.

My father, age 102, survived an emergency bowel and hip operation, a high output fistula, a month on a ventilator, and more than three years on dialysis because of love for my mother, age 100.

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Last week he explained to me how he had lived so long: “When someone throws a punch, I duck,” he said.

Praying for my patients means understanding that they are more than just bodies to be fixed — that they also have precious souls to be nurtured.

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This is the secret to great doctoring, and it keeps me from writing off any of my patients too soon. In each case, there may still be one more miracle to be had.

Belief in miracles is also a path forward towards mutual respect, regardless of political affiliation in today’s tortured and divided times.

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