After all, I was pointing out how healing can be more than merely physical.
How exactly: what mechanism is 'more than merely physical'?
There is nothing to do with changing "the attitudes of people in order to obtain a certain outcome" - that's something you have added yourself. Generally - as Jesus points out in Luke's Gospel - someone approaches a doctor because they appreciate that they are 'ill' in some way. In other words, they want to change; a doctor empowers them to do that, be it by themselves or with help from 3rd parties such as surgeons or other medics.
I doubt that the alleged views of Jesus are relevant to medicine in the 21st century. While in some cases people may want to change, say, their health related behaviour (smoking, diet etc) people also consult medical doctors because they need specialist advice and possibly specialised treatment that is different to, say, just having a positive outlook, which although useful will be of limited value in, say, the treatment of endocrine disorders.
I would suggest that, in some cases, the surgeons/medics have done no more than their original intention, and left the patient alone - and the prayers of people have had an impact. In other cases, and I can think of at least a couple of these, the medics have decided to try something that they had previously dismissed or have had other medics (sometimes many miles away) suggest they try, because the situation has been shared with other people - some of whom could be surgeons themselves or who have been able to talk with surgeons they know. I can think of one operation my wife helped with in Nepal where the British surgeon was talked through the procedure by a surgeon in the States using Skype!! Said US surgeon had been approached by someone whose family were praying for the situation. As I have said elsewhere, one might be the answer - or at least part of the answer - to one's own prayers. Regarding the "I wouldn't normally do this to a terminally ill patient but I have a strange desire to do it now" issue, I have been told by sureons and other doctors that they have had a 'revelation' whilst thinking about the case, perhaps as a result of reading an article in the Lancet or the British Medical Journal, and wondered whether the process described could be the answer; a procedure they'd never performed before but which was clearly enough outlined to perform having spoken to the author or whatever for clarification.
It is clear from this amateur anecdotal ramble that you really don't have a clue how medicine operates: the above, given its insightless simplicity, reads more like 'Topsy and Tim Visit the Doctor'.
While it is the case that specialist medics tend to focus on patients who have problems that fit their specialism, and that they do so is the result of preceding clinical assessment that these days often involve tests and the consideration of differential diagnoses, this does not mean that there is only one treatment option, especially where there are several clinical aspects to consider in any one patient and that patients don't always respond in the same way to the same treatment(s).
In my experience, in various clinical areas during a long NHS career, and while I have seen examples of medics choosing different options within appropriate treatment regimes, asking other specialists to give an opinion or referring to the published medical science in considering a range treatment options - and no doubt in remote areas this may involve remote consultation between suitably qualified professionals (the Flying Doctor service in Australia for example) - in routine treatment (as opposed to clinical research) I have never encountered a 'lets try this and see what happens' approach where the 'this' is unjustified by any presenting diagnostic evidence. Intervention on a whim like this may well be seen as unethical, and would be a quick way to becoming an ex-medic.
I have also sat through many mortality/case reviews, where the specifics of a death or on-going response to treatment are reviewed so that any cavalier or unjustified interventions would be picked up. Such reviews are used for both teaching and assessing the standard of care given, and where references to recent or relevant published research may well be made. I can't recall single occasion when a medic (and I worked with quite a few) ever referred to miracles or prayers as a possible explanation.
Since I suspect I have the advantage of you in terms direct practical experience I feel justified in saying that you are doing the medical profession, and related professions, a disservice if all you can offer is non-specific anecdote involving isolated examples in which you cite anonymous 'sureons [sic] and other doctors': you quite clearly don't know what you are talking about!
