The clock shines 10:00 AM in Eric’s room. It’s time for another round of chemo therapy. He’s spent six months in this hospital. Each day brings a different bouquet and Hallmark card. Looking at them makes Eric feel nauseous. He already can’t stand looking in the mirror at where his once plentiful hair once grew. As he is being transported down the hall, he finds himself looking into other patients rooms only to be disappointed with the same flowers and cards laying in a pile next to the IV. He ponders how many days he has left. Later that night, he finds himself silently staring at the ceiling again. His daily routine now consists of taking multicolored pills and listening to the chaplain’s promise of “salvation”, and the “promised land”. Neither make him feel any better. Medicine development has been at an all time high in recent years. Left and right doctors and scientists are finding cures to once-incurable illnesses. Less patients are dying in bed each year. However, many speculate that it’s not the medicine doing the work, but faith. Believing in a higher power has been the “miracle drug” to people for thousands of years, even before medicine was revolutionized. This being said, many critics argue over which ailment
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Rao Musunuru, a leading cardiologist, argues in his piece “Faith Deserves a Place in Science of Medicine”, published in the St. Petersburg Times, that faith and medicine coexist and work together to fight illness. Musunuru claims that although medicine deals with symptoms of sickness, faith in the physician and treatment is just as important as the actual effects and powers of said treatment. He compares faith to the “placebo effect”, where a patient is given a sham treatment to make them think that it will help them, when in reality the sickness is in their head, thus exemplifying the adage “mind over matter.” Finally, Musunuru claims that words, hugs, compassion and sympathy “may do as much good as medications to heal the
Rao Musunuru, a leading cardiologist, argues in his piece “Faith Deserves a Place in Science of Medicine”, published in the St. Petersburg Times, that faith and medicine coexist and work together to fight illness. Musunuru claims that although medicine deals with symptoms of sickness, faith in the physician and treatment is just as important as the actual effects and powers of said treatment. He compares faith to the “placebo effect”, where a patient is given a sham treatment to make them think that it will help them, when in reality the sickness is in their head, thus exemplifying the adage “mind over matter.” Finally, Musunuru claims that words, hugs, compassion and sympathy “may do as much good as medications to heal the