I think it is a false dichotomy to ask whether a physician's primary relationship is to the patient or the patient's religion. Of course, there is a primary relationship is to the patient, but the patient is a person, composed of body and soul, and that unique person's religion must not be ignored in the physician-patient relationship.
I recall asking a psychiatrist one time about religious differences between a patient and his or her psychiatrist and, indeed, whether the religion of the psychiatrist should be a consideration when a religious person sought psychiatric help. The answer I received impressed me. "It is not the religion of the psychiatrist that is key here; it is the religion of the patient. Any good (and ethical) psychiatrist will respect the religion of the patient under treatment."
There may be rare cases where a competent physician will decline to treat a person because behavior in connection to that person's religious commitment may be prompting the person to do unhealthy or dangerous things. Better to choose not to have that person as a patient. But once a physician-patient relationship is established, the primary responsibility is to the whole person, body and soul, whose faith and religious convictions are part of who he or she is.
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