Dr. Marc Siegel, a physician and Fox News senior medical analyst, has written a new book arguing that spirituality and modern medicine are not separate forces but ones that often work together in patient recoveries. The book, “The Angels Among Us,” draws on medical research, historical cases and Siegel’s own clinical experience.
“You don’t draw the line between an explanation that’s medical or spiritual. They’re combined,” Siegel told Fox News Digital. “And the more doctors that remember that, the better.”
Siegel points to survey data showing that 70% of physicians believe in God and 55% report having witnessed medical miracles during their practice. In the book, he broadens the idea of “angels” beyond religious imagery to include doctors, nurses and ordinary people whose timely actions have led to unexplained recoveries or crucial support for patients.
“The messengers are either actual angels from God that come down, that can take human form, that are voices where you don’t have a visualization, or they can be humans that God appoints to do angel-like work,” Siegel said. “I started to identify humans who play the role of angels in our lives.”
A Soldier’s Story in Iraq and San Francisco
One of the cases in the book involves U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Spencer Milo, who was given a terminal brain tumor diagnosis after suffering severe trauma in Iraq. While seeking a second opinion at the University of California, San Francisco, Milo met a Benedictine monk. Later imaging revealed the tumor was actually benign.
Milo also credits former President George W. Bush with giving him crucial emotional support during a later personal crisis, and names both the monk and Bush as central to his recovery.
Lessons From the ICU
Siegel also draws on his own residency training in intensive care units, recalling a patient who spent three months in a coma after severe brain trauma. Despite a negative prognosis, the patient regained consciousness and eventually returned to work.
“That embroidered on me the need to not give up — the need to look for explanations beyond just the purely physical,” Siegel said. “My role is not to decide who lives and who dies. My role is to relieve suffering and prolong life.”
The book includes personal family stories as well, including Siegel’s father’s four-year survival on dialysis through a catheter after surviving severe COVID-19 and complex emergency surgery at age 98. Siegel also describes a critically ill ICU patient who reported seeing comforting spiritual figures shortly before her condition stabilized.
Historical Cases
Siegel’s book also revisits historical medical episodes, including an interview with Dr. David Gens, the lead surgeon who treated President Ronald Reagan after the 1981 assassination attempt. Gens described the emergency room triage decisions, the dynamics with the Secret Service, and Reagan’s eventual recovery.
The book also examines the origins of Alcoholics Anonymous, focusing on co-founder Bill Wilson’s spiritual awakening at Towns Hospital in New York and the peer-support model that grew from it.
Siegel is careful to note that faith and prayer are not substitutes for clinical care and do not guarantee survival. But he argues spirituality remains an important factor in how patients cope with illness.
“Spirituality affects outcomes because it’s a prerequisite to the courage to overcome,” Siegel said. “Great doctoring helps enormously, but prayer and hope give patients the strength to keep fighting.”
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