Sacred games

I was reading this clinical study, which looks into the question: Does praying for patients decrease the patients' risk of complications following heart surgery? Now at an initial glance it looked like something which didnot make a lot of sense. In this age of computers and high tech surgery, would something like prayer make a difference!! From the design perspective, it was well designed: (1) it selected patients without any particular religious affiliation (2) the praying was done by a christian prayer group. There were some draw backs though: (1) self prayer and prayer by family/friends was not taken into consideration (2) The surgery was limited to Coronary bypass grafting.

And the answer to the question was: it didnot reduce the complications, on the other hand there appeared to be an increase in the incidence of complications.

So does that mean that prayer makes it worse and that the act of summoning a higher power for divine intervention in our world of human intervention, makes it worse.

A tough question to answer. Do I believe in the fact that prayer can reduce surgical complications: maybe not. Especially if you are working under the knife of someone who is well trained and knows his job well: I would say luck has more role to play or serendipity makes more sense. But if you are being treated by a quack, then yes: divine intervention might save your life. And might reduce the complication rate. Or maybe prayer might help you to reach some one who can truly help you.

Being born in a very religious family, prayer has been a part and parcel of life. I have seen days begin with a prayer and end with a prayer. I have seen elaborate functions being performed for success and for the elimination of bad luck. I have been part of those prayers and rituals: sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly. Does my personal experience say one way or the other. I cannot say. I do not know. I have thought about it objectively, but cannot come to a comclusion one way or the other.

The prime reason for this lack of convinction, either ways in my mind is the fact that I have never been to design the right experiment in my life to test this hypothesis. In order to make a firm statement I would need to let something happen or go through a test in my life without the help of a prayer and do the same thing again with a prayer. And finally repeat such things enough number of times to be able to make it statistically significant. And that can never happen in one life and thus we might beed to work on multiple lives and then try to see where it makes a difference. And thus the power of the study I quoted previously. It was something that was designed to answer that question.

I was meditating over this fact and realised that I was looking at it the wrong way. Prayer does not change the physical aspect of anything, but changes the non-physical attributes in our life. It brings in a different perspective. Think of it in this manner: The son (lets say B) of Mr. A is in trouble, lets say financial trouble. And the other son (lets say C) is just emerging from a sickness, a prolonged sickness. So, a troubled Mrs. D (the wife of Mr. A) decides to talk to the messenger of God, a priest (Mr. E) and see if there is something in the stars or the astrological predictions that can help explain the present crisis in their family. The priest comes up with a plan to appease the Gods: we will perform a ceremony with Fire and give a donation to a God and a priest amongst others. The ceremony is planned, lot of people are invited and they come and participate in the proceedings. And a few days later everything seems to be headed in the right direction: an angel investor comes to the rescue of B and C is regaining his strength. Seems that there is some divine intervention. Possibily. But there can be other aspects to it too.

By performing the ceremony, attention was brought to the troubles of the two young men. So, in way it brought about the equivalent of acceptance of a problem. Acceptance by the individuals themselves, the family and the extended network of friends and well wishers. Once it is accept that there is a problem, it makes it easier to go about addressing what needs to be done to solve it. Then also, the network of friends and well wishers in a direct and indirect measure try to help. The result is: an angel investor is found who is looking to invest money in the kind of thing B is attempting to do. And also in the extended network, a physician is identified, who can addresses the health issue froma frsh perspective and comes up with a plan. The result is improved health.

So yes, the prayer worked. But worked at a different dimension. Does it mean that there is no divine intervention. I do not know. I am not in a position to answer that question truthfully. I am a student of science and nature. And my quest is the search of truth. The truth behind life, death and all that is in between. And till now I have not made much progress in understanding either of them to a levle where I can confidently say that I know what is going on and what will happen. I can make and educated guess, and it might come true, but it does not mean that I can see the past or the future.

Now coming back to the original question: does prayer help in health and disease. I believe it does. Firstly it gives one the internal strength and confidence to deal with the problem. That itself is a major achievement. It gives one the courage to handle and face failure. And that makes success more tangible, because you will be more inclined to make and attempt and thus have a better chance to succeed. Success does not come easy, you have to pay the price of failure. At some point of time. And those failures should not make you loose wary of trying. Prayer helps to keep that resolve, because you some how feel that there is some one who is going to be supporting you when you are down. That there is some one who will be rooting for you even if the odds are stacked up against you. And that unconditional love and faith comes only in very few relationships, and one of them is the relationship between a devotee and God, and intermediate for that is prayer.

Going to a place of worship does the same thing. You go and bow your head in front of a diety or a picture or a book or something that is recognised by your faith: it can even be a mere force. This act of bowing your head, resets the mind. Like we reset a computer. We are in a way telling ourselves, that I can be wrong, give me the strength to do the right thing. We can be telling ourselves, keep on this track, it is right thing to do. Or we can telling ourselves, this is end of this time and now the new time is about to begin. And if one does this only when the stakes are high and the chips are down, the chance of success might not be too high. Only for the reason that there is not enough incidents in the data set to make a statistically powerful statement. But if this is done daily, there is more power to the statement. And not only from the point of divine intervention, but inteventions from our own mind. We are our biggest enemies and this act helps us to identify the enemy and work towards it. Does it help everyone, maybe not. Why does it not help everyone, I cannot say, I do not know. Has it helped me: yes it has. Does that make my faith stronger, yes it does. Does the failures test my faith, yes it does. But then it also give me the strength to look ahead for a better day and time.

Holy Smokes

The number of people that smoke in this part of the world, makes me realise that it is not only the europeans that do it like a religion. In California it is like a sin to smoke in public, but here it is like a sin the other way around. Though things are changing, but then it is irony when people get burned because they are smoking while they are on Oxygen treatment. And some of them, have the home night oxygen because they cannot breath without it, and then they smoke like chimneys throughout the day. But then, what the hell, if people didnot abuse themselves, there would be no need for all this medical care and where will the doctors go!!!

Sometimes I think what would happen if people stopped smoking, drinking alcohol, having high cholesterol fast food and taking/seeking drugs. It would almost be a perfect world without the top 10 diseases. And we doctors willbe out of business. There is not much business in health maintainnce anyways. And it is this kind of behaviour which is funding our education and the upbringing our children. I think we doctors should thank these people for smoking. A truly thank you for smoking.

Recently it came out in the news, that slowly we are able to identify the genes that make us suspectible to a certain number of disorders/diseases. And so people started publishing it and there was an interest to commericialise these tests so that people can determine by genetic testing where do they stand in terms of suspectibility. Well, the insurance companies are not that far behind and they have made plans to characterise these people are 'pre-diseased'. As a result now, these very people will not be covered by insurance and the companies will not pay for their care. One would think that the insurance is more like an insurance from disease and they would want to identify who is suspectible and make a case for the early detection of the disease process, so that costs of health care and other indirect costs can be kept down. But no, we have to condemn these people to their gallows. Who in their right mind is going to screen themselves for these genetic diseases.

Grey's Anatomy

Not that this is the first time I am blogging. But this is the first time for me to start blogging on a regular basis. The idea came when I was talking to this lady in a coffee shop, we were discussing that I had recently moved to the area and really didnot have a much feel of the area. And during the conversation she enquires about my profession and I tell her that I am a physician. And so her next statement was: So it's not Grey's Anatomy. So the title kind of stuck to my head.

The purpose of the blog will be to post thoughts, ideas and more during these years of being a physician. Not that I plan to do anything else right now, but then one never knows what the future has in store for the all of us.

Afterall it is not Grey's Anatomy where the script is pre-written and structured. And even if it is, we have no read it.