In reading David Klinghoffer’s post here, “Medicine’s ‘Sacred Space’ — Grossly Violated,” I was grateful for his mention of my previous Evolution News post (“My Briar Patch: Notes of a Country Doctor”).
I was struck by his comment, “When my dad was dying, I saw both sides of the healthcare world, one that fought stubbornly to save a life and the other that was coldly indifferent and even eager to end it.”
The unfortunate fact is, there really are those two conflicting sides in medicine. Allow me to provide a deeper perspective on this, borne of over 40 years of experience. I believe that most of us in the field entered medical school eager to heal the sick and also to become educated in medical science. Initially it was hard to imagine any conflict between these two goals. But in the process of our education and training, it became increasingly obvious that a conflict could emerge if one overemphasized the scientific quest at the expense of the compassion and altruism presumably inherent in care of the sick.
A Dramatic Transition
In fact, the practice of medicine has transitioned dramatically over the past half century. Before 1970, the medical arts were still relatively primitive. There were no CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs, or elaborate surgical or medical interventions. Doctors carried little black bags with tools inside to tease out whatever they could to discern that which was the source of the ailment. Under those circumstances physicians had no choice but to be humble. But this humility was compensated for by compassion and tireless dedication. Most physicians practicing before 1980 rarely saw their spouses or children except on Sunday afternoon. They often did not know how to heal the sick they attended, but still they were highly revered for their efforts. The rise of modern, highly specialized, and scientifically rigorous medicine paralleled the rise of the biological sciences taking place in those same 50 years or so. Because I matriculated in 1975, I was fully vested in this process. Most readers will note that it was also during this time that scientific atheism took firm hold. We had discovered DNA and, on that basis, we presumed to know how to reduce life to mere chemical reactions. Medical education then fully embraced the machine model of organism and human health.
That May Sound Grim
But every time I have tried to rethink the issue, I have been brought back to that day as a medical student when I saw a baby’s limb torn out of its mother’s womb by forceps. It was just an arm, but its fingers were extended, reaching in vain for the life it would never have. Most of us silently gasped as we saw this. But my professor admonished us not to think negatively about the process; rather we should embrace the freedom somehow manifested by partial birth abortion.
What this conclusively proved to me was that we truly were being indoctrinated to see the human body as a soulless machine. And the immense demands of med school rendered resistance almost impossible. Burdened by medical science itself, as well as by the medico-legal requirement to strictly adhere to the most up-to-date treatment algorithm, most physicians find they have little choice but to comply. To think outside the box would imperil one’s hard-won professional standing.
Very Little Appreciation
Men and women become physicians because they are good at memorizing innumerable facts and putting them into practice. The machine model, which defines the standard of care, fits quite readily with this skill set. And the work we do offers little incentive to ponder the underlying metaphysics of the science from which we derive our technical expertise. In my innumerable conversations with colleagues over more than forty years, I have discerned very little if any appreciation for concepts like irreducible complexity, or the limitations of reductionism in general.
And the fact remains that virtually every physician practicing today receives continuing education from the atheistic academic establishment by which they were educated and trained.
But many physicians are truly torn. As human beings possessed of a divine soul, however unacknowledged, they instinctively know that there is far more to their vocation than what they were taught to believe.
So every day, physicians must try to reconcile these conflicting priorities.It is not easy. I think that many do their best, and I have great respect for my colleagues. But I still see that many have a long way to go before they truly understand the tension between these opposing undercurrents, which are at the taproot of their daily enterprise.
For my physician colleagues, more so than for academic scientists in general, I think there is great potential to bring them to this deeper understanding. I believe that many yearn to be liberated from the suffocating boundaries of mechanism. For many, it was spiritual intuition, not mechanics, which motivated them to become medical healers in the first place.
For that very reason, engendering such an awakening among my physician colleagues is feasible. Most physicians are highly educated but philosophically naïve. With the proper guidance, many could be redirected toward their instincts of holism over reductionism.
Every physician who wishes to understand life as the ultimate professional goal has the capacity to achieve this realization. To understand that there is more to pleading than just bleeding. I know this because, like me, they regularly dwell in the sacred space between doctor and patient, where healing requires both science and soul.
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