November 20, 2003

     One of the more interesting personalities during my days at St. Joseph's Hospital in Manapla, Negros Occidental was a nurse we will just call Manang L. No relation to Stella L, in fact, Manang L was already in her late 50's during that time and she's proud of having spent most of her working years at St. Joseph's. She never considered working anywhere else as the employee benefits were too much to pass.

     What made Manang L interesting was she seemed to always find herself in hilarious situations. While some residents dreaded to deal with her, I always enjoyed the company especially during graveyard shifts when she would tell stories or do something that kept us awake.

     One day, after a shift change, Manang L was doing her rounds with a volunteer nurse in tow when a patient with jaundice asked her "nga-a dalag ining akon lawas?" (why is my body yellow?). Manang L thought for a while and then pointed to the IV fluid which was colored yellow (diluted Vitamin C) and said, "Tan-awa bala ang tubig nga naga-sulod sa lawas mo. Tan-awa ang kolor kay pareho." (Look at the fluid that goes inside your body. Look at the color, they're the same). She said that with so much authority, according to the volunteer nurse, that the patient looked very enlightened. The volunteer nurse barely contained her laughter and, of course, told the story to us later.

"...researchers have been conducting hundreds of studies, trying to scientifically measure the effects of faith and spirituality on health. Brain scans of people deep in prayer, like meditating nuns, showed that meditation improves physical health."

     I was on-duty the day when this 'Manang L moment' happened. A patient in one of the private rooms was in respiratory distress. The 'bantay' (folk) reported it to the nurses' station and Manang L was on her way. The patient was breathing heavily, cyanotic, while Manang L was in apparent panic. Instead of picking up the phone to call a doctor, she grabbed the huge cross on the wall and pointed it straight to the patient's face while shouting, "Pangamuyo' ka! Kun gusto mo pa mabuhi', pangamuyo'!" (Pray! If you want to stay alive, pray!)

     The volunteer nurse maintained her composure, called the operator and had me paged. I was actually on my way to the second floor (where the private rooms are) so I ran straight to the room. The patient's appearance was so bad, I told Manang L (still holding the cross, praying) to have the intubation set on stand-by. She, in turn, told the volunteer nurse. While assisting the patient's breathing with an ambu-bag, I interrogated the volunteer nurse, typical questions like - "When did this happen? Why didn't you page right away? Blah, blah, blah..." She just bowed her head but would tell me the real story later. The patient was okay after that.

     The story may be hilarious. Especially so if you think that any other nurse would not have done the same thing Manang L did. Grabbing a cross from the wall is not a typical response to an emergency. But you can't blame Manang L too. I did not, although I would have preferred that she should've paged a doctor first before grabbing the cross. Who am I to say that the prayers did not help the patient recover? I can say that but I can't prove it. Yet I was never in doubt at any time in my life that God heals. As Theophilus mentioned in the forum discussion, "For us Filipinos the question whether God heals or not is a non-issue. He heals. Period." As people who believe in God, no matter which religion one belongs too, that is not even a question to ask. You may find this line in a medical joke book but many will insist it's not even a joke - "God heals. Doctors take the fee."

     But that is not the point of discussion I am going into. God heals, we may as well agree to that (if you don't, you can post your views in the aforementioned forum discussion), the interesting thing is science and medicine are beginning to come up with research and studies to prove it. My question is, can medicine prove it? According to a recent issue of Newsweek magazine, all over the medical establishment, legitimate scientists are seeking the most ethical, effective ways to combine patients' spiritual and religious beliefs with high-tech treatment. A mutual-fund tycoon even spends as much as $30 million a year funding scientific projects that explore the nature of God. According to the same Newsweek issue, Harvard Medical School held a conference just last week on spirituality and health, focusing on the healing effects of forgiveness.

     "There's been a tremendous shift in the medical profession's openness to this topic. People like me are intrigued by what we're seeing." says Dr. Andrew Newberg, as quoted by Newsweek. Dr. Newberg is a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is studying the biological effects of meditation and prayer on the brain.

     The cynical side of modern medicine, of course, will always demand scientific proof. Let's not overreact and call someone an atheist just because he or she believes religion is a private matter and should be separate from medicine. In fact, it's hard to reconcile these two together. If we agree to separate the two then it's the end of our discussion. That wouldn't be so interesting, would it?

     I am a Catholic but I admit I was not a regular church-goer until I got married. I have my wife to thank for that. We pray every night to God to give us good health as many if not all of you do. And when one of us falls to a bad case of flu, we take the appropriate medications and when we get well, we always include in our prayers thanking God for healing us. I personally believe God heals but please don't tell me to rot in hell if I am so interested in scientific proof. Don't write my church to excommunicate me if I ask such questions as (for the sake of 'scientific' discussion), can belief in God delay death? Slow cancer? Lower blood pressure? Cure migraine? Speed recovery from surgery?

     Some will argue that if I need such proof, I have doubts about my faith. Please. Wouldn't it be cool if their is scientific proof about what we have been believing all along? It's not as if I am changing my position if I can't find any.

     Which brings me back to the Newsweek cover story. According to Newsweek, researchers have been conducting hundreds of studies, trying to scientifically measure the effects of faith and spirituality on health. Brain scans of people deep in prayer, like meditating nuns, showed that meditation improves physical health. One study showed that one of the clearest health benefits of religion is that churchgoers live longer than others. The average death age for non-church goers is 75 while those who go to church more than weekly is 83. But Newsweek hastens to add, "How do you separate the health benefits of going to church or synagogue from the fact that people who attend religious services tend to smoke less and be less depressed than those who don't? While the research results have been mixed, the studies inevitably run up against the difficulty of using scientific methods to answer what are, essentially, existential questions. How do you measure the power of prayer? Can one person's prayer be stronger - and more effective - than another's? ...And the studies prompt questions that no one, not even the best scientists, will ever be able to answer: Can one extra prayer mean the difference between life and death? Can prayer be dosed, the way medicines are? Does harder praying mean better treatment by God?"

     Those are direct quotes from the Newsweek article which many consider bordering on sacrilegious. "To think that God would only respond to the group that was prayed for and leave the other group out in the dark is based on total misconceptions of how God responds to prayer," says Cynthia Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, as quoted by Newsweek. "God is not a machine who responds mechanically."

     Articles and studies in medical journals like The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine regarding religion and medicine have essentially divided the American medical profession into two camps. The Newsweek article mentions that, "some scientists, like Columbia University professor Richard Sloan, believe that religion has no place in medicine and that steering patients toward spiritual practice can do more harm than good. Others, like Duke University’s pioneering faith-and-medicine researcher Dr. Harold Koenig, believe that a growing body of evidence points to religion’s positive effects on health and that keeping spirituality out of the clinic is irresponsible."

     Critics are not necessarily 'non-religious' people. Most of them are devout practitioners of their faith. I do understand if they have concerns when patients put too much faith in God's will. One doctor featured in the Newsweek article mentioned that one of her patients, a Jehovah's Witness who has diabetes and hypertension, believes her illness is in God’s hands and she sometimes eats destructively, harming her health. He is worried that, while this woman could take better care of herself, "she believes God really is the ultimate decision-maker."

     Not a few of us can relate to that. During one of the few times I went on vacation to the place where I grew up, my mother told me to visit a neighbor who she said "has been lying there, very sick". The neighbor was in her late 50's, very pale, constantly groaning in pain, and with a very palpable mass in her pelvic area. I thought then that she has ovarian cancer and suggested to the family that they bring the patient immediately to the hospital. I explained to them that I will write a referral and the patient will be treated as a service case and they don't have to worry too much about expenses. They refused and said that this is probably a form of God's punishment and they will accept it as such. The woman died weeks later without the benefit of any medical care.

     I won't be a hypocrite and tell you that I used to pray for my patients because I have not. But I did tell patients a few times to pray to God, although I didn't have to do that all the time because as you all know, we see patients and folks all the time praying, with rosaries and prayer books at their bedsides. From what I have observed personally, prayer gives them comfort and takes them away from the verge of desperation.

     I won't forget the time when I was at St. Joseph's Hospital when we had a 31-year old patient who looked more like a 5-year old, the body so thin and stretched out, barely moving. She had some kind of cerebral palsy but that was not the reason she was admitted. She had pneumonia. What amazed me was how her mother was able to take care of her all of 31 years. When we made our daily rounds, we could see the mother feeding her, changing her clothes and cleaning her discharges. The mother was 61. Imagine doing these for 30 years. When we were about to discharge her, her mother, in tears, walked up to us and said, she won't forget us in her prayers for healing her daughter. I told her, "God healed your daughter. He's been with her the past 31 years".

     I used to snicker whenever I remember Manang L grabbing the cross from the wall.

     Well, I used to.

     If you want to express your opinion on faith and healing, please visit the Forum - and post your comment on the topic God and healing. If you want to write me directly, please use the form below.

     This week's FINAL WORD comes from Anonymous (a recent response to an old column on chain letters):

     "Too long. Don't have time to read it. So much e-mail. Pls. send this to LA or NY Times. They may have time to read it. Trash it to Smoky Mountain that's where it belongs."

     First of all, thanks for saying my article is worthy of the New York and L.A. Times. Second, I think it is unfair for you to compare LA or NY Times to the Smokey Mountain. Third, I can't blame you if my column's too long for you. It is to other people too. My advise is, don't read it and stick with the short ones. I recommend those strips of paper inside fortune cookies.

Feedback: send your comments to the author (anonymously, if you wish)

     The author's e-mail address is at drgarcia(at)wvsumedaa.com

     Views expressed on this column and any other by-lined articles on this site are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organization or its members.