It is a very good thing if a Hindu chaplain opens the senate proceedings with prayer.

We are just beginning to try to move away from the only prayers (every day, before proceedings start) in the House of the Lords in the UK being conducted by the Church of England bishops. There is no sign of a move. I cannot comment on church and state divides, but in terms of
having prayers at all, it is a huge improvement to have people of all faiths conducting the prayers from time to time, and it works very well in the Scottish parliament.

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Physicians' primary obligations are to their patients, without a doubt.

They have other obligations, of course, including to wider society, to
their professional colleagues, both physicians and other health care
professionals, to their employing institutions, and to their own ethical
codes (which may or may not accord completely with their personal
religious convictions.) We know that many physicians have strong moral
objections to carrying out certain procedures for religious reasons- e.g.
Catholics and abortion. But they must tell their patients that that is
the case, and be honest with them. And they must advise them to go elsewhere
if the patients hold other and differing religious views. To pretend
that physicians' own religious views trump those of their patients or wider
society is both arrogant and wrong-headed.