Happy Resurrection Day

Easter marks the reunion of Jesus' spirit and dead body after his crucifixion three days earlier. Thousands of years later, here I am on Easter Sunday I'm trying to unite my spirit with my still undead body. Yoga, meditation, healthy diet, exercise, and reflective discussion are my methods.

In my path towards becoming a doctor, I recently stumbled upon the "integrative medicine" movement where contemporary Western medicine is mixed with other medical systems (ex. Chinese medicine, Indian Ayurvedic medicine, etc.) and techniques (ex. hypnotism & chiropractic). Although these "alternative" medicine techniques are not new - they are in fact much older than our current biomedical practices - they are becoming increasingly popular in the dUS, with about a third of the population employing their services.

Why are a large number of people turning towards these systems? In many cases, modern disease (i.e. heart disease, cancer, obesity, diebetes, & chronic back pain) are not adequately treated by Western techniques (usually intake of chemicals or surgery). Unfortunately, people turn to alternative medicine as a last resort after having had many painful surgeries and/or after chugging harmful-side-effect-laden medications. In the process of undergoing "alternative" treatments, they then find success. Furthermore, it's less painful, less costly, and longer lasting.

In a greater context, this shift in practice seems to be a response to the stiff & uncaring health care system overburdened by profit-seeking insurance & HMO bureaucracies that is reflected in its practices. As most common "alternative" medicines revolve around philosophies of self-healing or natural healing, they require listening to the patient - the person - instead of listening for the prescription or surgery to come. That is, the answer often comes from within and not from without.

It seems that, as in other aspects of dUS society, we seem to look for problems and answers outside of ourselves (i.e. war in Iraq and undocumented immigration "problem"). Instead, we must also look within and question the path we are heading down. How can a country that, of all developed countries, spends the most money on health care tie for 29th place in life expectancy (UNDP Human Development Report 2005)? We need a dramatic shift in the focus of our national healthcare system. At the base of such a shift is a change in perspective from without to within. Again, I'm talking about the (hu)man in the mirror (see "(hu)Man in the Mirror" from June 29th, 2005).

As a parallel, the modern Christian interpration of a God from without that saves us from our sins through his death and resurrection must also be viewed as the result of an internal journey. Indeed, the recent translation of the lost Gospel of Judas invites the theory of release of the spirit from the prison of the body. In it, Jesus confides to Judas with regard to the other disciples, "But you will exceed all of them. You will sacrifice the man the clothes me." Scholars say that Jesus meant that by helping to kill his physical body, Judas would act to free his soul. This is similar to the Buddhist and Hindu quest for "nirvana" in which one tries to reach an absolute truth and, upon reaching it, the liberated mind no longer requires the physical body. Indeed, when Mohandas Gandhi was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied, "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."

We are all on the same journey, as humanity and as individuals. One physical manifestation of this journey is health and the systems by which we, as a society, choose to address it. We no longer can afford to ignore our bodies and minds, it's too costly on our checkbooks and, most importantly, on life itself. That's why I'm sitting quietly in my room on Easter Sunday, the day of Jesus' resurrection, trying to understand who I am - today, yesterday, and tomorrow. I need to understand myselft to heal myself, only then can I begin to think about healing others.

"Every human being is the author of his own health or disease."
-Buddha Guatama Siddharta

"Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease."
-Hippocrates

"It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has."
-Hippocrates

References:
"What is Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)?"
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/

"Manifesto for a New Medicine: Your Guide to Healing Partnerships and the Wise Use of Alternative Therapies"
by James Gordon, MD

"UNDP Human Development Report 2005"
United Nations Development Programme
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/

"In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal"
by Joan Noble Wilford and Laurie Goldstein
New York Times, April 7th, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/science/07judas.html