Cure is about Caring

“Patients can benefit from both personal caring and scientifically proven treatments.” – Science Based Medicine

Humanism in medicine isn’t just about being nice. It’s about caring. Helping to alleviate stress can improve health outcomes.

I am a big fan of Science Based Medicine, the website. When in doubt, I go to them for the research. They had an article last year about placebos, not as cures, but as comfort.  https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/cure-is-about-caring-not-curing-placebos-alternative-medicine-and-patient-comfort/

Placebos are things which have no effect on the outcome of a disease.  There is just the suggestion that some people have experienced good results with the placebo and this helps people think they are improving.

There is also a Nocebo effect, as it turns out telling people about negative side effects seems to make those side effects more common.

The research into the ethical use of the placebo effect in medicine is a new field of research and the article above does a good job of laying out what is real in the research and what isn’t.

Let’s be real, people seek out placebos in the form of “alternate medicine” all the time and they do so for a variety of reasons. Mostly it’s because they are scared and are seeking ways to be “proactive” as a way to reduce their stress levels. And this is important because stress can kill and lead to adverse health consequences.

The conclusion of the article is this “We need to learn how to incorporate things like empathy, social support, and hope into better patient care. It’s not just about curing; it’s about caring and comforting when we can’t cure.”

I agree. Sounds a lot like Humanism in medicine to me!

What you believe really matters

I say it all the time. What you believe really matters. If what you think is causing your problem isn’t really the cause of your problem you won’t be able to solve your problem.  This is why Humanists reject supernaturalism. We are looking for the real reasons why things happen so that we can fix it.

This is why when Humanism is applied to different fields of study, it yeilds such good results.  Humanistic medicine and Humanistic psychology for instance have benefited from this compassion based natural approach to problem solving. We don’t think that people with mental health issues are possessed by the devil anymore. At least not in the west.

I ran across this article from Arab News which reports that epileptic seizures aren’t caused by Genies. It turns out it is curable. http://www.arabnews.com/%5Btermalias-raw%5D/epilepsy-curable-not-linked-jinns  My son is epileptic so this caught my eye. I know my son’s epilepsy has natural causes and is treatable.

To me, this is a perfect example of why rejecting supernaturalism is so important and can help people. People are suffering from epilepsy without knowing that it can be cured. They are being treated as outcasts because their community isn’t aware that this is a natural as opposed to supernatural problem.  What you believe your problem is really matters. It is the difference between solving your problem and continuing to suffer with it. Humanists reject supernaturalism because every medical problem studied so far has turned out to have natural causes. Genies have nothing to do with it.