09 January 2004

PROGNOSIS: TERMINAL

There must be a serious reconsideration of a particular practice in the field of medicine. Prognoses on the part of medical physicians as to the remaining duration of a patient's life MUST be eliminated from the clinical vocabulary.

No, you as an extremely educated person in the areas of biology, disease, and healing, despite your experience, varied studies, and years on this Earth, do not know for how long a patient will remain alive or what will happen next. You do not even have the luxury of an estimation. You simply DO NOT KNOW.

The phrases "I don't know" or "I am not sure" are rarely heard coming from the throats of the physician. If they are, the patient should be honored to be in the medical care of such a person. For a physician to admit not knowing or uncertainty about a medical condition to the very person whose well-being ostensibly resides in the authority placed in the physician's word is a brave and commendable act. For a patient, to be left dangling above the gaping jaws of destiny is temporarily extremely unsettling and destabilizing, but ultimately is much more satisfying and certain than thinking one is plunging into them.

Patients, do not deceive yourself. Do not deprive yourself of truth by placing it outside of yourself and your Knowledge. Only God knows. Remember that.

Physicians, if you have not already, step down from the podium of telling people when they might die. It is truly abominable to abuse the power that has been placed onto your profession by the secularisation of spirit into the positivism of science. This power is false and extremely temporary. Be honest.

No comments: