In what ways did the Christian Church help and hinder medicine in the Middle Ages

The medieval Christian church actually believed that to suffer physically was to come closer to God. This belief is closely related to the movement of 'affective piety': the idea that humans should feel guilty and suffer, because Jesus was tortured and died to save them. Physical pain was a kind of punishment (and remember, all humans have that burden of Adam's 'original sin'), but also meant people could relate better to Christ's suffering on the cross.

There's lots of accounts from the early medieval periods of saints and other figures whose sickness made them 'holier'. Google St. Aethelthryth, for example, who died from a huge tumour/boil on her neck. In texts about her life she is continually said to be 'grateful' for her suffering, which she believed was given to her by God.

Monks, nuns and other conservative religious people would sometimes inflict punishments on themselves for the same effect - wearing coarse goat hair shirts that were uncomfortable and itchy, or even whipping themselves (as happened around the time of the Black Death and earlier). The medieval Church also taught that suffering was God's way of testing your faith - this comes in line with the teaching of the Book of Job.