Medicine and Healing are they one and the same thing? In this blog I take a different approach and present a review of a book that I recently came across. It is a book of significant wisdom. The author is respectful to the homeopathic system of medicine, which is refreshing.
Dr Paul Dieppe is a retired academic rheumatologist. Appointed Professor at Bristol at the rather young age of 41. He subsequently became Dean of Medicine at Bristol and later Director of the Medical Research Council’s Health Services Research Collaboration in the UK .
Though “intoxicated by the beauty and power of medical science”, he had long been curious as to the meaning of healing. So, in the final years of an illustrious career, he chose to apply his skills and authority in researching the phenomenon at Exeter University.
An encounter, whilst a student, with a rather indomitable consultant, later to become a mentor, was pivotal in his appreciation of medicine. There was something beyond diagnosis and treatment; the importance of ‘being there’ for the patient.
The book is divided into three sections:
Dr Dieppe ‘sensed’ that medicine was his destiny from a very young age, but knew not why.
Later, when faced with potentially life threatening events, he again ‘sensed’ that all would be well, despite situations suggesting quite the contrary.
As a student he encountered a rather indomitable consultant who became a mentor. The consultant engaged with his patients in a particular and beneficial way. There was something beyond diagnosis and treatment; the importance of ‘being there’ for the patient.
He writes that medicine is a science, of course, but it is also an art. Or should be.
Through his clinical career Dr Dieppe encounters patients whose condition did not follow the expected diagnostic trajectory. In some cases, so called, ‘alternative’ medicine brought apparent results. At least that was the patient’s strong conviction.
In one case, the emotional circumstances of the patient proved pivotal. Decades of misplaced guilt were a key causative factor in the patient’s arthritis.
The second section covers his later years at Exeter University and his research into healing.
He devotes one chapter to the placebo effect. Treatment by placebo means using a pill or procedure without any understood medical benefit (e.g. a sugar pill). The term comes from the latin word ‘placere’ meaning ‘to please’.
Remarkably, studies show that 70% of osteoarthritis pain relief can be attributed to placebo alone. Patients are strongly influenced by their expectations, both positive and negative.
The importance of ‘validation’ – conveying a general understanding of the patient’s problems – appears to be key. The term ‘placebo’ seems simplistic but despite best efforts no ideal expression has been found. Perhaps, distilled down, “it’s simply a sense of unconditional love”.
Randomised Control Trials (RCTs), have long been a thorn in the side of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Dr Dieppe argues that “complex interventions..should not be tested by simple RCTs alone, as they deliberately ‘control’ out the non-specific / incidental effects that might be all important.”
The author then explores the concept of ‘energy’ in discussion with various healers. One says,”You see, Paul, the key thing is to let go of your own ego, leave that outside the room, and then channel unconditional love for the other person, whoever they may be”.
His own problematic knee is given energy healing to measurable benefit. He declined the challenge from his medic daughter to have another X-ray. “Why? … I think I was frightened about the result – either way! I was finding all this ‘healing stuff’ very confusing”, he writes.
He experiments as trainee ‘healer’, including treating a horse (a beast that “rather frightens him”), showed potential.
Dr Dieppe considers various forms of healing, including shamanic; bone-setters; pets as healers and indeed homeopathy. There is also a chapter about the Roman Catholic Shrine at Lourdes, where Dr Dieppe appreciated the “low-tech high-touch” approach, and the sense of equality and value of rituals
The author is impressed when he sits-in during a consultation taken by a doctor homeopath. Yet, today, medical science considers homeopathy “a useless form of drug therapy”,
He writes: “We do not understand homeopathy, but that is not a reason to dismiss it. Trials do not show much efficacy, but that is not a reason to reject it either, because, as stated previously, trials are inappropriate for interventions that have to be highly individualised and depend on the relationships between therapist and client.
“Finally, I don’t think we need to completely reject the idea that the diluted substances may themselves have efficacy, even though my own opinion is that the value of homeopathy is much more to do with its similarities to other forms of healing that depend on the individual practitioners.”
[From the standpoint of the homeopath – it would be ideal if it were so! Alas, two hundred years of homeopathic practice show that the remedy has to resonate with the patient’s symptoms otherwise nothing happens. I have written about the nature of homeopathic medicines in an earlier blog which you can find here. There is also an increasingly strong evidence base courtesy of the Homeopathic Research Institute]
Subsequent chapters in this section consider the lay view of ‘healing’, and the value of healing visual art in hospitals (appreciated more by nurses than doctors!) and just being in nature.
In the end the Dr Dieppe reaches the conclusion that “there is an ineffable, spiritual mystery to the Universe. Some call this God; others, love or universal consciousness, whereas healers tend to talk of energy. And it seems that all living things are connected, or can be connected, in some way that is inexplicable to our current scientific knowledge.”
The first chapter of this section contains short transcripts from interviews with six NHS active or former GPs; three men and three women aged between 48 and 80.
The author poses three basic questions:
These are quite challenging questions. Nonetheless, from the responses he concludes that many health professionals are indeed healers.
Yet, the medical establishment does not recognise healing as such. Whilst science has demonstrable value in exploring concepts, Dr Dieppe warns against science being the sole truth – this is scientism.
Despite the remarkable medical advances in the past half century, he perceives that the narrow mechanistic paradigm underlying the teaching and practice of modern medicine is a problem. Also industry directs research according to the needs of the business over those of the patient.
Yet, CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) also has its own challenges, “bedevilled by large numbers of well-meaning people pushing a single, favourite intervention”.
To diagnose and treat belies the fact that “disease is truly complex” involving many socioeconomic factors.
The management of mortality is also failing. Dieppe quotes a colleague in the USA who said that “deep down Americans now think that death is optional”.
Reflecting on his remarkable career and his fifteen years of research into healing, Dr Dieppe argues for greater appreciation of man’s spiritual nature, and a shift from medicine as a business based on a single flawed belief system.
He concludes “Do unto others as if they were you, because, in a sense, they are.”
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This is such a good book. Will the western medical schools take note?
There are many medical models, be it herbal / naturopathic, traditional Chinese or Indian, and indeed homeopathic. None have sole rights to ‘the’ answer but all have a role to play.
Should you care to explore whether homeopathy can help with your health please book a free 30 minute Discovery Call via this button.
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HEALING AND MEDICINE
A Doctor’s Journey Toward Their Integration
Paul Dieppe
Routledge – Productivity Press
ISBN 978-1032610597
Paperback pp272 £33.76
Amazon Kindle £27.59
Disclaimer: I am a qualified professional homeopath and not a medical doctor. The NHS has many resources, and seeking the opinion of your GP is always of value.
Dibden Purlieu, Southampton