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| medicine because he saw how these treatments weakened patients, preventing them from developing the robust health so necessary for fighting their cancer. |
| What Traditional Approaches Offer Today's Physicians |
| "Seek to understand rather than to be understood" is part of a famous Franciscan prayer, sometimes called The Peace Prayer. Though time is in short supply today for just about any doctor, the only way to fully understand a patient's condition is to listen without checking a clock and without anticipation of results. This is also a highly effective way to learn about giving, loving, and, in the process, becoming a better healer. |
| Most physicians practicing medicine today make full use of the steadily increasing body of scientific medical knowledge, sophisticated diagnostic procedures, and pharmacology, but many, in their fascination with the latest scientific advances, including diagnostic hardware, blood testing, and the wide array of cytotoxic cancer treatments currently available, have forgotten that some of the most valuable healing experiencesfor both patient and healercome from the human interaction that takes place between the two. |
| Most doctors today are running busy practicesactually small businesses that have all the concerns of any modern business. Modern medicine as a business is first and foremost profit-oriented. This does not bode well for patients who hope for some quality private time with their doctors. |
| Some of today's physicians treat their patients like spiritless robots and rarely acknowledge that diet, lifestyle, and attitude can affect one's health. With their focus almost exclusively on symptoms, they don't see their patients as individuals and fail to take into account the subtle interplay of body, mind, emotions, and spirit unique to each individual. To make matters worse, many patients see a number of different doctors. Take the cancer patient, for example, who may see a general practitioner, a gynecologist or urologist, a surgeon, an oncologist, a radiologist, a psychiatrist, and so forth. Though these doctors may be tops in their fields, they don't always communicate with each other about their patients or consider anything about those patients beyond their presenting symptoms. |
| What's more, the treatments they inflict on their patients can be needlessly harsh, often doing more harm than good. For example: |
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