There was a time when being a doctor meant caring for your patient as the human being that they were. With the advent of increasing advances in medical technology doctors have allowed themselves to become seduced by several myths: 1. That the human body can be thought of a simply a machine that needs fixing when it breaks down. 2. That modern technology will eventually be able to fix human bodies in disrepair. 3. That the human being whose body it is is simply a passive and unimportant factor in the process of healing the body. 4. That the idea of there even being "a person" in that body is unscientific nonsense. Interestingly however it seems that modern medicine has yet to explain an interesting and indisputable fact; the issue of an individual's "will to live". In other words when an individual receives a poor prognosis one person might choose to accept it as gospel while another might instead choose not to accept it. In the latter case one often experiences what some might consider unexplained even miraculous healing phenomena. Phenomena that puzzle doctors to no end. Yes puzzle them because the mechanical reductionist approach to healing that many physicians have adopted, pure and simple, leaves out the human being in that body. Why does it do this? Well because the essence of an individual, what some consider the "life force" itself cannot be reduced to such a limited mechanical model. In this light it is my view that "modern" medicine will never realize its ultimate goal, that of healing others, unless it acknowledges and accepts the true healing element in the bodies they are attempting to heal, the human spirit itself. It has been my experience that the power of the human spirit is capable of miracles as I described. Such miracles can only come about however if the human being in that body is acknowledged and given priority as the main healing force in that body. This means that the focus modern medicine has taken must change dramatically. If it doesn't it will continue to alienate this force with technology that is both expensive and dehumanizing. In doing so it will only be undermining itself and its efforts. |