Love, Medicine & Miracles
Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Sur geon’ s Experience with
Exceptional Patients
OceanofPDF .comBernie S. Siegel, M.D. OceanofPDF .comD e d i c a t i o n
To the Act of Creation
To my parents, Si and Rose, for showing me how to love and hope
To my wife, Bobbie, for putting up with me and for always being there to
learn from and love
To her parents, Merle and Ado, for their courage and humor
To our children, Jonathan, Jef frey, Stephen, and the twins, Carolyn and
Keith, for all the love and beauty they have brought into our lives
To all my exceptional associates, patients, and friends for taking the time to
teach, support, and accept me
To Victoria Pryor , Carol Cohen, Gary Selden—acknowledging how much
love, acceptance, and for giveness a sur geon requires to complete a book
OceanofPDF .comContents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Reflections and Thoughts on Love, Medicine & Miracles
Introduction
I. Minding The Body
1. The Privileged Listener
2. The Healing Partnership
3. Disease and the Mind
4. The Will to Live
II. Embodying The Mind
5. Beginning the Journey
6. Focusing the Mind for Healing
7. Images in Disease and Healing
8. Becoming Exceptional
9. Love and Death
Appendix
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
OceanofPDF .comReflections and Thoughts on Love, Medicine & Miracles
There are several things I am happy to share with you since the writing of
Love, Medicine & Miracles . I retired from the practice of sur gery in 1989, because by that time more
health care professionals were willing to listen to my message. Once they
understood that my work had a scientific basis, they were willing to accept
it. I no longer had to keep explaining myself but could instead share my
experience and therefore help more people by what I had learned. Ten or
twenty years ago if they listened, they were more likely to ar gue about the
validity of what I was saying. I appeared on all the talk shows as an
excellent source of conflict and controversy . There was much
misunderstanding of the statements I made regarding the role of illness in a
person’ s life. I spent a good deal of time defending myself and explaining
what I meant. The point I was trying to make related to the fact that an
illness had ef fects on a person’ s life beyond just the physical dimension. There were beneficial side ef fects and a freedom to live that some people
obtained from their disease because it made them aware of their mortality . Since we are all mortal, why did some people need to be ill to have the
freedom to live their unique lives and experience the beneficial side ef fects? Today the health professionals and talk shows are asking for
information. I am more often a source of inspiration, not inflammation. Both doctors and patients need healing and are far more ready to listen and
learn today . As a matter of fact, I recently read a very moving book by a
physician whose wife died of cancer . In the book he apologizes to me. Now ,
he and I never met and he has nothing to apologize for , except his previous
beliefs. The message he shares through his writing is that he has learned
that his family had a unique and dif ficult experience, not just a diagnosis
that one prescribed treatment for . My teachings and meditations were
important to him and his wife as they lived the experience. Suddenly hope
and love became very important complementary therapies. Before writing this introduction I reread my previously published books
and was not disappointed by what I read. There is a good deal of important
and useful information within them. They are good training manuals forthose facing adversity . I am even wiser today , due to my further experience
with adversity and what I have learned since writing these books and
starting Exceptional Cancer Patients in 1978. I want to share what I have
learned in the intervening time. One of the things I have learned is that I haven’ t discovered anything
new about survival behavior . The message is an age-old one and can be
found in the words of the prophets of the past and those struggling to
survive today’ s difficulties, from exceptional patients to members of
Alcoholics Anonymous and the Marines. Science and medicine certainly
have confirmed through recent research the personality profile and
psychology associated with survival behavior and how they af fect the
body’ s chemistry and healing ability . Information about healing and surviving has been handed down to us
for thousands of years by all the great prophets and spiritual leaders. What I
have learned is that their message is similar to my own. When one finds a
common theme in the writings of those who are healers, one knows there is
truth in them. If I were rewriting my books today I would be sure to include
the messages of these healers and the most recent scientific support of the
advantages of this kind of behavior and lifestyle. If I were rewriting Love, Medicine & Miracles , I might consider
changing its title to The Side Effects of Cancer . Healing is hard work, as is
any change one must make in one’ s life. I and others have learned, however ,
that the side ef fects of cancer may not all be bad ones. Yes, cancer , can kill
and we tend to think of side ef fects as problems, but there are good side
effects too. An awareness of one’ s mortality can lead you to wake up and
live an authentic, meaningful life. I can read you an article entitled “Thank
God I Have Cancer .” The ‘Thank God’  is for the time the cancer gave the
author to learn about the beauty , kindness and love that are here for us to
share. These side ef fects also produce a longer life as their byproduct. The ugly duckling had to do a lot of personal work to find himself and
his beauty and to heal his life. He had no support from his family or health
professionals to help him find self-esteem and love. He found it in his
reflection. I feel that a patient should not have to go through the same
struggle. One’ s family and the medical profession should be able to educate
and instruct about appropriate survival behavior when adversity , in the form
of an illness, occurs in life. The issue is not about living forever and testing
God, but utilizing all of the physical and emotional forces available forhealing. The mind and body are not separate units, but one integrated
system. How we act and what we think, eat, and feel are all related to our
health. Physicians should be capable of teaching this behavior to patients. I
spend more time teaching now than ever , and my most grateful patients are
the ones who thank me for teaching them how to deal with all of life’ s
difficulties, not just the physical ones. Medical education does not deal with many of the dif ficulties
physicians must confront in themselves and their patients. Physicians need
to be good technicians and know how to prescribe, but for healing to occur
they also need to incorporate philosophy and spirituality into their
treatment. We need to feel as well as think. When one’ s existence is
threatened there are more issues and questions to confront than what
medicine to take, or operation to under go. As one woman wrote, we need a
mutual investment society—the patient and the doctors investing in each
other . So how do you display survival behavior and find a good doctor who
knows how to use his or her expertise and be your teacher? Ask the doctor
if he or she has ever been criticized by his or her family , patients or nurses. If the answer is yes, that is the doctor to use. Why? Because that is someone
there is hope for. You don’ t criticize someone you don’ t think is willing to
listen, learn and hopefully change. As the poet Rumi said, “Y our criticism
polishes my mirror .” Good doctors understand this. The nurses also know
the capable, caring physicians from their experience with them, so ask their
opinion and don’ t hesitate to speak up if you are not treated with respect. Submissive behavior is not survival behavior . Be the human being, not the
diagnosis or room number . I mentioned that as I reviewed my previous writings I felt satisfied with
the content. My next feeling was simply remembering the many wonderful
and loving people who were and still are my teachers. Now that I am not
sitting down with them for several hours each week, I miss them, and
rereading their stories really brought that home to me. So many religions and philosophies tell us how to find our way or path. What they are all trying to tell us is to pay attention to our feelings and let
them guide us. If you ignore your body and its messages, at some point you
will suf fer the consequences. Two of Christ’ s messages sum it up very well. “He who seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who is willing to lose his
life will save it.” I interpret this to mean that we lose our authentic lifewhen we give in to the demands of others, or we become something others
want us to be in order to gain their love or simply continue to be cared for . When we awaken to our mortality , we refuse to live the life that is killing us
and start living and being our true selves. On a practical level it may mean
changing occupations, moving, healing or ending relationships and bringing
meaning and a new attitude into life and working for the right Lord. Your life is stored in your body . Christ’ s second message is, “If you do
not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy
you. If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save
you.” He is talking about our feelings and body memories, and is quite
correct. The earliest spiritual writings tell us to sit quietly and listen. The
Kabbalah gives specific instructions on how to hear the voice of God and be
enlightened so that your wisdom can be used to help others. Survivors take
time to be still and listen. You may call it meditation, imagery , relaxation or
journal writing but it all amounts to finding time to be still and listen to the
voice within you and the voice which will come to you. I often have this
experience when I am out jogging or bicycling by myself with nothing to
distract me. Take the time to listen. If you listen, you will learn your
purpose here and be able to die joyfully , knowing that you have served in
your way and fulfilled the reasons for your creation. Survivors deal with the
spiritual, existential and emotional aspects of their lives. When we commit
ourselves to egoless, unconditional love, true healing begins. We are then
not devoted to changing people but devoted to the people. Love itself is a
miraculous healing force. In a sense it is the miracle and the reason for
being. So ask yourself what lesson you are here to learn and learn that
lesson by the way you distribute your love to the world. Remember the
blindness of love does great things to obliterate the wounds of the world. We say love is blind because it helps us to see the world in a way that is
significant for survival. Love’ s blindness is therapeutic because it allows us
to function without storing the images of life’ s difficulties within us. I tell
people, “If you can’ t love at least develop amnesia so you can live a more
peaceful life, unable to remember all the things people did to upset you. I
am here to help you survive and so is our creator .” If God weren’ t
intelligent, loving ener gy then none of us would be here today . The ability
to heal has been built into us and into all living things. God doesn’ t play
favorites. We get upset when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, butnot by our ability to become resistant to disease. They are both survival
mechanisms put there by our creator to sustain life in a balanced way . Do not live a role. Live an authentic life. Many people die when they
can’t work anymore due to their illness. They do not see relationships as
providing another reason for living. On the other hand a mother of nine may
not die because of her children but the year after they leave home she dies. Find your life and live it. Do not live a role. Please remember that information doesn’ t change anyone. Inspiration
does. Find your reason to live. Be inspired by it and under go revelation and
transformation. I have found only one bit of information that could help
change you. It is that you are mortal and will die some day . Therefore, don’ t
do things to not die but do things to enhance the quality of your life and you
may be surprised by how long you do live. Accept that you will die and
make decisions about how you want to spend the limited amount of time
you have. Then you won’ t need to go into therapy in Heaven to deal with
the bitterness and resentment over all the things you did and then died
anyway . Learn from the wisdom of others and enjoy your life experience. Remember the Bible ends in Revelations, not Conclusions, and graduations
are commencements not terminations. Please let this book be a revelation to
you and let me be your guide to transformation and a life of peace, love and
healing. Begin now . Bernie S. Siegel, M.D. OceanofPDF .comThe fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology
and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the pr ocess
of life . —F RANZ  ALEXANDER , M.D. OceanofPDF .comIntr oduction
Several years ago a group of nurses at a nearby hospital asked me to talk to
Jonathan, a physician who had just been diagnosed as having lung cancer . He had been admitted in good physical condition and was in good humor ,
joking with all the nurses. When he learned his diagnosis, however , he
became terribly depressed and withdrawn. I talked with him about the relationship between attitude and disease. I
discussed Norman Cousins’ s experience with suspected tuberculosis as he
described it in Anatomy of an Illness:
 
My first experience in coping with a bleak medical diagnosis came at
the age of ten, when I was sent to a tuberculosis sanitarium. I was terribly
frail and underweight, and it seemed logical to suppose that I was in the
grip of a serious malady . Later it was discovered that the doctors had
mistakenly interpreted normal calcification as TB markings. X-rays at that
time were not yet a totally reliable basis for complex diagnosis. In any case,
I spent six months at the sanitarium. What was most interesting to me about that early experience was that
patients divided themselves into two groups: those who were confident they
would beat back the disease and be able to resume normal lives, and those
who resigned themselves to a prolonged and even fatal illness. Those of us
who held to the optimistic view became good friends, involved ourselves in
creative activities, and had little to do with the patients who had resigned
themselves to the worst. When newcomers arrived at the hospital, we did
our best to recruit them before the bleak brigade went to work. I couldn’ t help being impressed with the fact that the boys in my group
had a far higher percentage of “dischar ged as cured” outcomes than the kids
in the other group. Even at the age of ten, I was being philosophically
conditioned; I became aware of the power of the mind in overcoming
disease. The lessons I learned about hope at that time played an important
part in my complete recovery and in the feelings I have had since about the
preciousness of life. Jonathan told me, “I know about that. I had tuberculosis myself and was
told I’d be in the sanatorium for two years. I said, ‘No, I’ll be home for
Christmas with my family .’ And in fact, in six months, on December 23, I
was dischar ged.”
I assured him, “Y ou can do the same thing with cancer ,” but in two
weeks he was dead. His wife thanked me for my ef forts and explained that
her husband hadn’ t wanted to fight for recovery because his life and work
had lost all meaning. Sir William Osler , the brilliant Canadian physician and medical
historian, said that the outcome of tuberculosis had more to do with what
went on in the patient’ s mind than what went on in his lungs. He was
echoing Hippocrates, who said he would rather know what sort of person
has a disease than what sort of disease a person has. Louis Pasteur and
Claude Bernard, two of the giants of nineteenth-century biology , argued all
their lives whether the most important factor in disease was the “soil”—the
human body—or the germ. On his deathbed, Pasteur admitted that Bernard
had been right, declaring, “It is the soil.”
Despite the insights of these eminent doctors, medicine still focuses on
disease, giving it a failure orientation. Its practitioners still act as though
disease catches people, rather than understanding that people catch disease
by becoming susceptible to the seeds of illness to which we are all
constantly exposed. Although the best physicians have always known
better , medicine as a whole has rarely studied the people who don’t get sick. Most doctors seldom consider how a patient’ s attitude towards life shapes
that life’ s quantity and quality . Patients vary enormously . Some will do almost anything rather than
alter their lives to increase their chances for a cure. When I of fer them a
choice between an operation and a change in lifestyle, eight out of ten say ,
“Operate. It hurts less. That way all I have to do is get a babysitter for the
week I’m in the hospital.” At the other extreme are those I call exceptional
patients, or survivors. They refuse to participate in defeat—like one woman
in my care, a blind diabetic amputee with cancer , who has lived longer than
statistics would have predicted and now spends much of her time on the
phone cheering up other  patients. She and other exceptional patients have
taught me that the mind can dramatically af fect the body and that the ability
to love is not limited by bodily illness.Freud’ s theory that our instinct for self-preservation is opposed by some
sort of death instinct has been rejected by many later psychologists. However , we all know that many people live their lives as though trying to
cut them short. Exceptional patients have overcome the pressures, conflicts,
and habits that lead others to act from this conscious or unconscious “death
wish.” Instead, their every thought and deed advances the cause of life. I
personally feel that we do have biological “live” and “die” mechanisms
within us. Other doctors’  scientific research and my own day-to-day clinical
experience have convinced me that the state of the mind changes the state
of the body by working through the central nervous system, the endocrine
system, and the immune system. Peace of mind sends the body a “live”
message, while depression, fear , and unresolved conflict give it a “die”
message. Thus, all healing is scientific, even if science can’ t yet explain
exactly how the unexpected “miracles” occur . Exceptional patients manifest the will to live in its most potent form. They take char ge of their lives even if they were never able to before, and
they work hard to achieve health and peace of mind. They do not rely on
doctors to take the initiative but rather use them as members of a team,
demanding the utmost in technique, resourcefulness, concern, and open-
mindedness. If they’re not satisfied, they change doctors. However , exceptional patients also are loving, and thus understand the
difficulties a physician faces. In most cases, my advice to a dissatisfied
patient is to give the doctor a hug. Usually this makes the doctor more
willing to respond to the patient’ s needs, because you become  an individual
to your physician and are treated  as an individual, not a disease. You
become what I af fectionately term “crazy .” One patient told me she went
back to her doctor with my advice but couldn’ t bring herself to hug him. “Instead,” she said, “I gave him the most compassionate look I could. And
you know what? He sat down, told me he needed to lose weight and get
more exercise, and then he hugged me!” If the hug doesn’ t work, however ,
then it’ s time to get another doctor , because I know patients who are
literally being killed by their relationship with their doctors. Everyone can be an exceptional patient, and the best time to start is
before getting sick. Many people don’ t make full use of their life force until
a near -fatal illness goads them into a “change of mind.” But it doesn’ t have
to be a last-minute awakening. The mind’ s power is available to us all the
time, and it has more room to maneuver before disaster threatens. Thisprocess doesn’ t require allegiance to any particular religious belief or
psychological system. Since cancer is the most common threatening disease
in my practice, most of the experiences herein concern cancer , but the same
principles apply to all diseases. The fundamental problem most patients face is an inability to love
themselves, having been unloved by others during some crucial part of their
lives. This period is almost always childhood, when our relations with our
parents establish our characteristic ways of reacting to stress. As adults we
repeat these reactions and make ourselves vulnerable to illness, and our
personalities often determine the specific nature of the illnesses. The ability
to love oneself, combined with the ability to love life, fully accepting that it
won’ t last forever , enables one to improve the quality of life. My role as a
surgeon is to buy people time, during which they can heal themselves. I try
to help them get well and at the same time to understand why they became
sick. Then they can go on to true healing, not merely a reversal of one
particular disease. This book is a guide for such a transformation, as well as a record of my
own education by my patients. I try to act as a conduit through which their
painfully acquired talent for life can show you how to fight ef fectively for
your own health. The book is not merely advice about what to do; that is
plentiful. Rather it is a guide to the part of yourself that can choose your
own best advice and then muster the will to follow it. I hope to reach
beyond your rational mind, for miracles don’ t come from the cold intellect. They come from finding your authentic self and following what you feel is
your own true course in life. If you are suf fering from some life-threatening disease, the change I’m
talking about may save your life or prolong it well past medical
expectations. At the very least it will enable you to get more out of your
remaining time than you now think possible. If you have a minor disorder ,
or if you’re not sick but not really enjoying life, the principles I’ve learned
from exceptional patients can bring you joy and help you avoid illness in
the future. If you are a physician, I hope this book will give you some strategies for
which you may have long felt a need, techniques that weren’ t covered in
your education. Physicians rarely realize how dif ferently they talk to cancer
patients, compared with their other patients. We tell a heart-attack patient
how to change his or her lifestyle—diet, exercise, and so on—thus of feringhope that he or she can participate in getting well. But if the same patient
were to put on makeup and a wig, then come back the next week and say , “I
have cancer ,” most doctors would say , “If these treatments don’ t work,
there’ s nothing else I can do for you.” We must learn to give patients the
option to participate in recovery from any type of disease. I’m not using these pages to say , “I’m a better doctor than you,” Rather
I’m trying to explain why I felt like a failure until my patients taught me
there’ s more to medicine than pills and incisions. I know your of fices are
filled with people who drain your ener gy and don’ t do well. I know the pain
physicians feel. We have all of the problems other people have, as well as
the one drummed into us in medical school: the role of mechanic-lifesaver ,
which defines illness and death as our failure. No one lives forever;
therefore, death is not the issue. Life is. Death is not a failure. Not choosing
to take on the challenge of life is. Let me show you the minority of patients
who can restore your energy, the ones who get well even when they’re not
supposed to. Let me show you how to learn from your successful patients
and help the others reawaken the “life wish” within. The process will
inevitably help you heal yourself and make you a more successful healer . We must remove the word “impossible” from our vocabulary . As David
Ben-Gurion once observed in another context, “Anyone who doesn’ t
believe in miracles is not a realist.” Moreover , when we see how terms like
“spontaneous remission” or “miracle” mislead and confuse us, then we will
learn. Such terms imply that the patient must be lucky to be cured, but these
healings occur through hard work. They are not acts of God. Remember that
one generation’ s miracle may be another ’s scientific fact. Do not close your
eyes to acts or events that are not always measurable. They happen by
means of an inner ener gy available to all of us. That’ s why I prefer terms
like “creative” or “self-induced” healing, which emphasize the patient’ s
active role. Let me show you how exceptional patients work to heal
themselves. BERNIE  S. S IEGEL, M.D. New Haven, Conn . April 1986
OceanofPDF .comKostoglotov [said], “All I’m saying is that we shouldn’ t behave
like rabbits and put our complete trust in doctors. For instance,
I’m reading this book.” He picked up a lar ge, open book from
the window sill. “Abrikosov and Stryukov , Pathological
Anatomy , medical school textbook. It says here that the link
between the development of tumors and the central nervous
system has so far been very little studied. And this link is an
amazing thing! It’ s written here in so many words.” He found the
place. “‘It happens rarely , but there are cases of self-induced
healing.’  You see how it’ s worded? Not recovery through
treatment, but actual healing. See?”
There was a stir throughout the ward. It was as though “self-
induced healing” had fluttered out of the great open book like a
rainbow-colored butterfly for everyone to see, and they all held
up their foreheads and cheeks for its healing touch as it flew
past. “Self-induced,” said Kostoglotov , laying aside his book. He
waved his hands, fingers splayed…. “That means that suddenly
for some unexplained reason the tumor starts of f in the opposite
direction! It gets smaller , resolves and finally disappears! See?”
They were all silent, gaping at the fairy tale. That a tumor ,
one’s own tumor , the destructive tumor which had mangled
one’s whole life, should suddenly drain away , dry up and die by
itself? They were all silent, still holding their faces up to the
butterfly . It was only the gloomy Podduyev who made his bed
creak and, with a hopeless and obstinate expression on his face,
croaked out, “I suppose for that you need to have…a clear
conscience.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer W ard
OceanofPDF .comI
MINDING THE BODY
OceanofPDF .com 
Love, Medicine, and Miracles  is factually accurate, except that names,
locales, and individual traits have been altered to preserve coherence while
protecting privacy . OceanofPDF .com1
A new philosophy , a way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid
dearly for and only acquir ed with much patience and gr eat effort . —F YODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY
OceanofPDF .comThe Privileged Listener
The idea of the exceptional patient is not taught in medical school. I came
to it only after a long period of unhappiness and soul searching in my
profession. I didn’ t have a class on healing and love, how to talk with
patients, or the reasons for becoming a doctor . I was not healed during my
training, and yet I was expected to heal others. In the early 1970s, after more than a decade as a practicing sur geon, I
was finding my job very painful. It wasn’ t a typical case of burnout; I could
cope with the unending problems, the intensity of the work, and the
constant life-or -death decisions. But I’d been trained to think my whole job
was doing things to people in a mechanical way to make them better , to
save their lives. This is how a doctor ’s success is defined. Since people
often don’ t get better and since everyone eventually dies, I felt like a failure
over and over again. Intuitively I felt there must be some way I could help
the “hopeless” cases by going beyond my role as a mechanic, but it took
years of dif ficult growth before I understood how to do so. When I’d started out, I’d looked forward to facing new problems each
day. It was an exciting challenge; it kept practice from becoming dull. After
several years, however , the challenges themselves became monotonous. I
would have loved an easy day when everything went according to schedule
and I had only routine cases. But there were no “normal” days. It was only
later that I became able to look upon the emer gencies, and even the
breakdowns in hospital procedure, as extra opportunities for helping people. Surgeons aren’ t perfect. We always do our best, but complications still
occur . Although disheartening, they keep us grounded and prevent us from
starting to think of ourselves as gods. The one case that most shook my
faith in myself was an injury to a facial nerve in a young girl I operated on
early in my career . Seeing her wake up with half her face paralyzed made
me want to hide forever . To become a sur geon in order to help people and
then to end up disfiguring someone was a shattering experience. Unfortunately , I hadn’ t yet learned that my typical physician’ s response—to
hide my pain when something went wrong—helped no one. The pressure never let up. When a patient was taken to the operating
room with severe bleeding, the staf f was tense and panicky—until the
surgeon walked in. Now the knot was in my stomach, and everyone else
relaxed. There was no one to whom I could transfer it. I could only lookinside myself for reassurance. As every operation began, the sweat poured
off, and then, even though the lights were just as hot as before, I cooled of f
as things came under control. I used to feel desperately alone, expecting
perfection of myself. The stress followed me home. Days before a dif ficult
operation, I’d live it over and over in my mind, praying that the successful
result I visualized would come to pass. Afterward, even if all went well, I’d
suddenly wake up in the middle of the night questioning my decisions. Now , after years of being educated by my patients, I’m able to make each
decision, live by it, and put it behind me, knowing I’m doing my best. Just
like a minister who feels alone because he never learns to talk to God, a
doctor feels alone if he or she never learns to talk with patients. One of the worst hardships is having so little time to spend with one’ s
family . The athlete can shower and go home after the game, but for doctors
the working day often has no end. I had to adjust to the idea that being
home on a weekend was a bonus, not something I could count on. Moreover , I was suf fering from two-way guilt: snatching a few hours of f
felt like stealing time from my patients, while the sixteen-hour days felt like
stealing time from my wife and children. I didn’ t know how to respond to
the guilt or how to unify my life. Many nights I was too tired to enjoy my
family after I did get home. Once I was so exhausted that, when taking the
babysitter home, I automatically drove to the hospital instead. She probably
thought I was kidnapping her . Even the time I managed to spend at home always seemed to get
interrupted. The kids were constantly asking, “Are you on call tonight?”
Everyone was nervous when I was on call, sure that the family evening
wouldn’ t last. For most people the ringing of the telephone is a friendly
sound. For us it meant anxiety and separation. One of a physician’ s most unnerving trials is due to the fact that death
comes in the middle of the night more often than at any other time,
something I now understand. One can’ t help but feel a twinge of anger
when a patient who has been in a coma for days passes away at 2 A.M., and
the doctor and family must be awakened with the news. We think, “Why
can’t the dying have a little respect for the living?” Few of us ever mention
this hostility . We just feel guilty about it. Then there’ s the added burden of
having to be cheery and alert in the operating room at 7 A.M., despite family
problems and two or three calls in the middle of the night.On New Year’s Day in 1974, I started keeping a journal. At first it was
largely an outlet for my despair . “At times it seems the world is dying of
cancer ,” I wrote one night. “Every abdomen you open is filled with it.” And
another night: “Y our stomach hits the floor , and the horror sweeps over you
as you see the future. How many faces must you look into and say , ‘I’m
sorry , it’s an inoperable tumor ’!”
I well remember Flora, one of my patients from that period. Her
husband had recently died, and now she herself lay dying of uterine cancer ,
which two operations had failed to halt. She agonized over how much each
day in the hospital cut into her life savings, which she had willed to her
granddaughters. Wanting to prolong life, at the same time she wanted it to
end so that no more of their education would be squandered on her frail
body . “How ,” I wondered, “can I find strength to support all these people in
their struggles?”
Thanks to the introspection of my diary I eventually realized I had to
change my attitude toward medical practice. Throughout this period I was
thinking seriously about finding another career . I considered becoming a
teacher—or a veterinarian, because veterinarians can hug their patients. I
couldn’ t decide what I wanted, but I realized that most of my choices had to
do with people. Even in the painting I did as a hobby my only interest was
portraits. Then finally it dawned on me. Here I was, seeing a score of patients
every day , as well as their families, dozens of doctors and nurses, and still I
was looking for people. All this time I’d been dealing in cases, charts,
diseases, remedies, staf f, and prognoses, instead of people. I’d thought of
my patients merely as machines I had to repair . I began to hear my co-
workers’  language in a new way . I remember addressing a conference of
pediatricians that year . Many of them walked in late, excitedly explaining
that an “interesting case”—a child nearing diabetic coma—had just been
admitted. I realized with a shock what a distance that attitude put between
the doctors and their “case,” who happened to be a very sick, frightened
child with distraught parents. I became aware that, no matter how I’d struggled against it, I, too, had
adopted this standard defense against pain and failure. Because I was
hurting, I withdrew when patients needed me most. This became especially
apparent when I returned from a long vacation in August 1974. For a few
days I reacted only as a human being. Then I could feel the emotionsslipping away and the professional veneer taking over . Yet I wanted to hang
on to this sensitivity , because the coldness doesn’ t really save anyone from
the pain. It just buries the hurt on a deeper level. I used to think a certain
amount of this distancing was essential, but for most doctors I think it goes
too far . Too often the pressure squeezes out our native compassion. The so-
called detached concern we’re taught is an absurdity . Instead, we need to be
taught a rational concern, which allows the expression of feelings without
impairing the ability to make decisions. I was still debating whether to remain a sur geon or give up half a
lifetime’ s learning to enter another specialty . I thought about psychiatry , in
which I’d be able to help people without cutting into them. Then one of my
cancer patients, a concert pianist named Mark, helped me realize that I
could be happy without changing my profession. As his condition
improved, all his friends told him he should go back to the stage, but he said
he knew he didn’ t belong there anymore. He had found he was happier just
playing the piano at home. He was still doing what he loved, but he had
changed the context to suit his own needs. I realized I needed to do the
same. I tried to “step out from behind my desk” and open the door to my heart
as well as my of fice. Now I literally have my desk against the wall so my
patient and I are in position to face each other as equals. A telephone
worker , a carpenter , and a medical student have said my of fice is all wrong
because the desk isn’ t in the middle anymore. I had to explain that I want to
see my patient with no obstacle between us, instead of relating as expert to
failure. I began encouraging my patients to call me by my first name. In the
beginning it was quite scary to be just Bernie, not Dr . Siegel—to meet
others as a person, not a label. It meant I had to like myself and deserve
respect for what I did rather than what I’d learned in school. But the change
was well worth it. It’ s a simple yet ef fective way to break down the barrier
between doctor and patient. Moving my desk and working on a first-name basis were only
symptoms of a lar ger change. I committed the physician’ s cardinal sin: I
“got involved” with my patients. For the first time I began to understand
fully what it’ s like to live with cancer , knowing the fear that it may be
spreading even while you talk to your doctor , do the dishes, play with thekids, work, sleep, or make love. How hard it is to keep one’ s integrity as a
human being with this knowledge! I no longer shielded myself emotionally from the scenes of sadness I
had to witness each day . One day on rounds I found one patient lying on his
side, drooling, his face stuporous from drugs, marshaling all his remaining
concentration on holding his urinal, completely oblivious of a marvelous
sunlit view through the window in front of him. He was lying in a pool of
mingled grape juice and bile, and I found myself staring at the striking color
of the stained sheet. The contrast of beauty and suf fering overwhelmed me. Soon, however , I found I could draw strength from my patients. When I
considered a man and wife, he with severe heart disease and she with
widespread breast cancer , each trying to survive to help the other , my own
sense of helplessness seemed somehow lessened. The compassion of
another woman, in terrible pain from fractures of both arms but still worried
that I was working too late, virtually banished my fatigue. When I said,
“See you later ,” and a dying patient smiled and quipped, “I hope so,” my
sense of impending defeat faded, for I saw that the fear of death had not
conquered that person’ s spirit. First I began hugging patients, figuring they
needed my reassurance. Later I found I was saying, “ I need  to hug you,” so
that I could go on. And even if they were on respirators, my patients
reached out to help me with a touch or a kiss, and my guilt, fatigue, and
despair evaporated. They were saving me. In the face of such courage, time and again I’ve wished I could do
something to ease the passage. I began to feel that my profession’ s methods
of attempting to prolong life and cure disease, among the noblest goals of
our civilization, were sometimes crueler than the way of the wild, where
serious illness is quickly relieved by death. It is said that one can never truly
conceive of one’ s own death, but I’m sure some do when they must weigh
the burden of the hours, days, or months remaining. The elderly often
wonder why they have lived so long only to suf fer such protracted misery
and humiliation. I feel we should be able to do more to help a person let go
and end life easily when the value of each day is gone. (I am talking about
natural means of letting go, which are available to us all when death is not
considered a failure.) The need for compassion to balance our medical heroism never struck
me more forcibly than during the death of Stephen, one of my partner ’s
friends. After a massive heart attack, he was strapped to a bed, with tubes inevery orifice. The damage was so great that a “no resuscitation” order was
issued. He was weeping in pain and fear , but no one would authorize any
painkillers, afraid that the drugs would hasten the inevitable and look like
euthanasia. Finally my partner himself had to intercede, even though his
friend was someone else’ s patient. He administered a shot of Nembutal. With the drug Stephen was able to relax and leave his body peacefully . He
breathed a “Thank you” and slipped quietly away in five minutes. He would
have been better of f in the street than in the hospital. The end would have
been quicker and less of an ordeal for all concerned. How can we say we’re
prolonging life when a person has become no more than a valve between
the intravenous fluids going in and the urine coming out? All we’re
prolonging is dying. An editorial in the Journal of the American Medical
Association  entitled “Not on My Shift” expressed one doctor ’s dilemma in
prolonging dying not extending life. The word “hospital” comes from the Latin for “guest,” but seldom is the
institution truly hospitable. Little attention is given to caring or healing, as
opposed to medicating. I’ve often wondered why designers couldn’ t at least
make the ceilings pretty , since patients have to spend so much time staring
at them. There’ s a TV in every room, but what music, what creative,
meditative, or humorous video is available to help establish a healing
environment? What freedom is given patients to maintain their identity? Recently Sam, a patient who healed remarkably fast after a hernia
repair , explained in a letter how a freer atmosphere helped him:
 
What did bother me, though, is why I was such a restrained, co-
operative, model “good patient.” I mean, I almost always make it known
who I am wherever I go, making waves just to make waves. So I gave it lots of thought, and the only answer I could come up with is
that the hospital setting was so non-authoritative (especially with the new
non-uniform dress code, which confused me) and the staf f so real, that I had
nothing to rebel against. And I think that my speedy healing, my not feeling
helpless and dependent, made me feel I was in control anyway—and there
was no need for me to make a big display of it. While someone is in the hospital, the staf f members become part of that
person’ s family , for they see a patient more often and more intimately thananyone else. We must face that responsibility by of fering the kind of loving
support that we expect the family to provide. They can’ t do the whole job in
a few hours of visiting time. I think of one of my patients, with carcinoma
of the colon and metastases to the lungs and brain, refusing treatment so
that he could die in the sun on his front porch, listening to the birds. Why
can’t hospitals be as warm? By allowing myself to feel as sharply as I could the same pain and fear
that my patients felt, I came to realize that there is an aspect of medicine
more important than all the technical procedures. I learned that I had much
more than sur gery to of fer and that my help could extend even to the dying
and their survivors. In fact, I concluded that the only real reason to stay in
this business was to of fer people a friendship they can feel, just when they
need it most. As my partner , Dick Selzer , who is a fine essayist as well as a
fine sur geon, has written in Mortal Lessons:
 
I do not know when it was that I understood that it is precisely this hell
in which we wage our lives that of fers us the ener gy, the possibility to care
for each other . A surgeon does not slip from his mother ’s womb with
compassion smeared upon him like the drippings of his birth. It is much
later that it comes. No easy shaft of grace this, but the cumulative
murmuring of the numberless wounds he has dressed, the incisions he has
made, all the sores and ulcers and cavities he has touched in order to heal. In the beginning it is barely audible, a whisper , as from many mouths. Slowly it gathers, rising from the streaming flesh until, at last, it is a pure
calling— an exclusive sound, like the cry of certain solitary birds—telling
that out of the resonance between the sick man and the one who tends him
there may spring that profound courtesy that the religious call Love. A GUIDE APPEARS
In June 1978, my practice of medicine changed as a result of an
unexpected experience I had at a teaching seminar . Oncologist O. Carl
Simonton and psychologist Stephanie Matthews (then his wife) gave a
workshop—Psychological Factors, Stress, and Cancer—at the Elmcrest
Institute in Portland, Connecticut. The Simontons were the first Western
practition ers to use imaging techniques against cancer , and together with
James L. Creighton they described their methods in Getting W ell Again . TheSimontons had already published their first results with “terminal” cancer
patients. Of their first 159 patients, none of whom was expected to live
more than a year , 19 percent had gotten rid of their cancer completely , and
the disease was regressing in another 22 percent. Those who eventually did
succumb had, on the average, doubled their predicted survival time. When I looked around during the first workshop session, I was amazed
and angered to find that I was the only “body doctor” there. There were a
psychiatrist and a holistic practitioner , but not one other primary-care
physician out of seventy-five participants. Those attending were mostly
social workers, patients, and psychologists. I became even angrier when
many of the participants told me they already knew about these techniques,
because the things I was learning hadn’ t even been hinted at in my medical
education. Here I was, an M.D., a “ Medical Deity,” and I didn’ t know what
went on in the head at all! The literature on mind-body interaction was
separate, and therefore unknown to specialists in other areas. I realized for
the first time how far ahead theology , psychology , and holistic medicine are
in this respect. I thought about the health records of doctors. They have more problems
with drugs and alcohol, and a higher suicide rate, than their patients. They
feel more hopeless than their patients and die faster after the age of sixty-
five. No wonder many people are reluctant to go to mainstream physicians. Would you take your car to a mechanic who couldn’ t get his own car to
run? The Simontons taught us how to meditate. At one point they led us in a
directed meditation to find and meet an inner guide. I approached this
exercise with all the skepticism one expects from a mechanistic doctor . Still, I sat down, closed my eyes, and followed directions. I didn’ t believe it
would work, but if it did I expected to see Jesus or Moses. Who else would
dare appear inside a sur geon’ s head? Instead I met Geor ge, a bearded, long-haired young man wearing an
immaculate flowing white gown and a skullcap. It was an incredible
awakening for me, because I hadn’ t expected anything to happen. As the
Simontons taught us to communicate with whomever we’d called up from
our unconscious minds, I found that talking to Geor ge was like playing
chess with myself, but without knowing what my alter ego’ s next move
would be.Geor ge was spontaneous, aware of my feelings, and an excellent
adviser . He gave me honest answers, some of which I didn’ t like at first. I
was still toying with the idea of a career change. When I told him, he
explained that I was too proud to give up the hard-won technical
proficiency of sur gery and start from scratch in another discipline. Instead,
he told me I could do more good by remaining a sur geon but changing my
self to help my patients mobilize their mental powers against disease. I
could combine the support and guidance of a minister or psychiatrist with
the resources and expertise of a physician. I could practice “cler gery,” a
term my wife coined. In the hospital I could be a role model for students,
house of ficers, and even other physicians. Geor ge said, “Y ou can go
anywhere in the hospital. A clergyman or therapist can’ t. You are free to
supplement medical treatment with love or death-and-dying counseling, in a
way that nonphysicians are not.”
I suppose you may call Geor ge a “meditatively released insight from my
unconscious,” or some such, if you must have an intellectual label for him. All I know is that he has been my invaluable companion ever since his first
appearance. My life is much easier now , because he does the hard work. Geor ge also helped me see things about medicine that I’d missed
before. I saw that, as far as healing is concerned, exceptions do not prove
the rule. If a “miracle,” such as permanent remission of cancer , happens
once, it is valid and must not be dismissed as a fluke. If one patient can do
it, there’ s no reason others can’ t. I realized that medicine has been studying
its failures when it should have been learning from its successes. We should
be paying more attention to the exceptional patients, those who get well
unexpectedly , instead of staring bleakly at all those who die in the usual
pattern. In the words of René Dubos, “Sometimes the more measurable
drives out the most important.”
I began to see how reliance on statistics had warped my own thinking. Long ago I had operated on Jim, a patient with colon cancer . I told his
family he had six months at most—this was back when I still predicted how
long patients would live—but he proved me wrong. Several times he
returned to me, and each time he walked in I’d think, “Aha! It’ s recurred at
last,” but it was always some minor unrelated problem. Every time I of fered
follow-up therapy for his cancer , he refused. He was too busy living and
had no time for my treatments based on statistics. Jim has been healthy for
well over a decade now .At the other extreme are patients like Irving, a financial adviser who
invested people’ s life savings according to statistics. He came to me with
liver cancer . His oncologist told him what statistics said about his chances,
and from then on he refused to fight for his life. He said, “I’ve spent my life
making predictions based on statistics. Statistics tell me I’m supposed to
die. If I don’ t die, my whole life doesn’ t make sense.” And he went home
and died. One problem with cancer statistics is that most self-induced cures don’ t
get into the medical literature. A survey of the reports on colorectal cancer
found only seven such cases described between 1900 and 1966, although
there have certainly been many more than that. A person who gets well
when he isn’ t supposed to doesn’ t go back to his doctor . If he does, many
doctors automatically assume his case was an error in diagnosis. In
addition, most physicians consider such cases too “mystical” to submit to a
journal, or think they don’ t apply to the rest of their patients, the “hopeless”
ones. Since I’ve changed my approach to focus on these rarities, however , I
hear about “miraculous” healings everywhere I go. Once people realize that
I know such things happen, they feel it’ s safe to tell me about them. After a
talk at a local church, for example, a man handed me a card and whispered,
“Read it later ,” and walked away . The handwritten note said:
 
Approximately 10 years ago your partner operated on my dad and
removed a section of his stomach. At this time you found his entire lymph
gland system to be cancerous. You advised me, the oldest son, to inform the
other members of my family of my father ’s condition. I chose not to. Last
Sunday my dad was surprised with a wonderful birthday party . He was 85
years old and my 80-year -old mom was smiling at his side! I looked up the file, and, sure enough, we had considered this man’ s
illness terminal over ten years before. He’d had cancer of the pancreas with
lymph-node metastases. I reviewed the pathology slides, and there was no
error in diagnosis. One physician’ s response to this case was “a slow-
growing tumor .” Today , this gentleman is 90. The tumor must be very slow-
growing, indeed. In such cases physicians must learn to rush to the patient’ s
home and ask why he didn’ t die when he was supposed to. Otherwise, suchself-cures will not appear in the medical literature, and we will never learn
from them that these are not instances of good luck, diagnostic errors, slow
growing tumors, or well-behaved cancers. A GROUP  FOR RULE BREAKERS
After my experience with the Simontons, with the help of my wife,
Bobbie, and Marcia Eager , then a nurse in my of fice, I started a therapy
group called Exceptional Cancer Patients (ECaP) to help people mobilize
their full resources against their disease. We adopted the Simontons’
recently published Getting W ell Again  as a workbook and sent out a
hundred letters to patients. The letter suggested we could help them live
better and longer through the techniques ECaP  would teach them. We
expected hundreds of replies. We thought everyone who got a letter would
tell several other cancer patients and bring them to the meeting. After all, I
thought, doesn’ t everyone want to live? Don’ t many patients go to the ends
of the earth for all sorts of alternative treatments that of fer a glimmer of
hope? I began to get nervous about how to handle the crowd that would
appear . Twelve people showed up. That was when I started to learn, firsthand, what patients are really like. I found there are three kinds. About 15 to 20 percent of all patients unconsciously , or even
consciously , wish to die. On some level they welcome cancer or another
serious illness as a way to escape their problems through death or disease. These are the patients who show no signs of stress when they find out their
diagnosis. As the doctor is struggling to get them well, they are resisting
and trying to die. If you ask them how they are they say , “Fine.” And what
is troubling them? “Nothing.”
One evening when I first began to understand this, I happened to be in
the room as one of my partners was discussing treatment with Harold, a
middle-aged colon-cancer patient, and his wife. I could hear his resistance
to every option. Finally I broke in and said, “I don’ t think you really want to
live.”
His wife was enraged. But Harold himself spoke up. “W ait a minute,”
he said. “He’ s absolutely right. My father ’s ninety and senile and in anursing home, and I never want to be like my father , so it’ s perfectly all
right if I die of cancer now .”
At that point the problem changed. It became a matter of getting him to
feel that he could be in control of his life and death, to realize that he didn’ t
have to give up many good years just to avoid the possibility of an
unpleasant end. You don’ t have to be ninety and senile if you can say no to
those who would artificially prolong your life—that is, your dying. After
several days of discussing these issues and considering how he really felt
about his life, Harold was able to go ahead with treatment for his cancer ,
and he is well today . Not long afterward, a psychiatrist friend told me a story that brought
home to me how far the death wish can go. He described one of his clients,
a severely depressed man, who came in one day all smiles. The therapist
asked what had happened, and the patient replied, “I don’ t need you
anymore. I’ve got cancer now .” When I think about such responses, I
sometimes wonder what’ s the point of our search for longevity , when so
many people feel so miserable and helpless that they don’ t want to live. We must realize the pain most people suf fer, and redefine our goals. What is healing? Is it a liver transplant or cure of an illness, or is it getting
people to have peace of mind and live life to its fullest? I know
quadriplegics who can say , “Fine,” when asked, “How are you?”—because
they have learned to love and give of themselves to the world. They are not
denying their physical limits but rather transcending them. In the middle of the spectrum of patients is the majority , about 60 to 70
percent. They are like actors auditioning for a part. They perform to satisfy
the physician. They act the way they think the doctor wants them to act,
hoping that then the doctor will do all the work and the medicine won’ t
taste bad. They’ll take their pills faithfully and show up for appointments. They’ll do what they’re told—unless the doctor suggests radical changes in
their lifestyle—but it never occurs to them to question the doctor ’s
decisions or strike out on their own by doing things for themselves that just
“feel right.” These are the people who, given a choice, would rather be
operated on than actively work to get well. At the other extreme are the 15 to 20 percent who are exceptional. They’re not auditioning; they’re being themselves. They refuse to play the
victim. When acting out that role, patients cannot help themselves, for
everything is being done to them.I get many letters from groups called Aid to Cancer Victims, or some
such title. The first thing I tell them is to change the group’ s name, because
victims by definition do not have the control they need to redirect their
mode of living. In our society , patients are automatically considered
victims. Several years ago Herbert Howe, a former cancer patient and
author of Do Not Go Gentle , appeared on ABC’ s Good Morning, America
to tell how his disease disappeared after he quit standard medical therapy
and took up exercise as an outlet for his anger . Even though he was free of
cancer , his name appeared on the TV screen with the label “Cancer Victim.”
Exceptional patients refuse to be victims. They educate themselves and
become specialists in their own care. They question the doctor because they
want to understand their treatment and participate in it. They demand
dignity , person-hood, and control, no matter what the course of the disease. It takes courage to be exceptional. I remember one woman who, when
told she had to go to the x-ray department, replied, “No. This test hasn’ t
been explained to me.” When the attendants told her , “You could die tonight
if you don’ t have this test,” she said, “Then I’ll die tonight, but I’m not
leaving my room.” Immediately someone appeared to explain what the test
was all about. Kathryn and Cornelius R yan captured the exceptional
patient’ s attitude in A Private Battle , an account of his battle with prostate
cancer and eventual death from it in 1974. She wrote, “He went out like a
tired lion, not a frightened lamb.” It was the fatigue that finally made him
let go. Fear was not the deciding factor . Exceptional patients want to know every detail of their x-ray reports. They want to know what every number in their lab test printouts means. A
doctor who harnesses that intense self-concern, instead of rejecting it and
being “too busy ,” dramatically improves the patient’ s chances. Physicians must realize that the patients they consider dif ficult or
uncooperative are those who are most likely to get well. Psychologist
Leonard Derogatis, in a study of thirty-five women with metastatic breast
cancer , found that the long-term survivors had poor relationships with their
physicians—as judged by the physicians. They asked a lot of questions and
expressed their emotions freely . Likewise, National Cancer Institute
psychologist Sandra Levy has shown that seriously ill breast-cancer patients
who expressed  high levels of depression, anxiety , and hostility survived
longer than those who showed little distress. Levy and other researchers
have also found that aggressive “bad” patients tend to have more killer Tcells, white cells that seek and destroy cancer cells, than docile “good”
patients. A group of London researchers under Keith Pettingale recently
reported a ten-year survival rate of 75 percent among cancer patients who
reacted to the diagnosis with a “fighting spirit,” compared with a 22-percent
survival rate among those who responded with “stoic acceptance” or
feelings of helplessness or hopelessness. To find out whether you have the outlook of an exceptional patient right
now, ask yourself this question before reading further: Do you want to live
to be a hundred? In ECaP  we have found that the capacity to be an
exceptional patient is accurately predicted by an immediate, visceral “Y es!”
with no ifs, ands, or buts. Most people will say , “Well, yes, as long as you
can guarantee I’ll be healthy .” However , the persons who be come
exceptional patients know that life comes with no such warranty . They
willingly accept all the risks and challenges. As long as they’re alive, they
feel in control of their destiny , content to receive some happiness for
themselves and give some to others. They have what psychologists call an
inner locus of contr ol. They do not fear the future or external events. They
know that happiness is an inside job. When I ask for a show of hands on this question, the response is
invariably the same—about 15 to 20 percent—for an average audience. There are far fewer “Y es!” answers—only about 5 percent—in a roomful of
doctors. Medical students are not so hopeless. It is trained into us. It’ s a
tragedy that so few doctors have the self-confidence necessary to motivate
others to believe in the future and care for themselves. Health-care
providers are so used to seeing only illness and handicaps that they rarely
have a positive attitude. When I go to a holistic health group or to a rustic
area where self-reliant individuals live, almost all the hands go up. These
are people who look to the future with confidence, knowing that respect and
love are available at all ages. I feel that all doctors should be required, as part of their training, to
attend healing services, at which people with so-called incurable diseases
appear . The physicians should be told they are not allowed to prescribe
medications nor consider operations for these people, but simply told to go
out and help them. Then doctors would learn that they can help by touching,
praying, or simply sharing on an emotional level. It would also help to
organize annual parties for survivors of serious illness, so that physicianscould see and talk with their “successes,” the people they’ve helped make
well. TEACHING EACH OTHER
The demands of exceptional patients and of ordinary ones are exactly
analogous to the methods used by the doctors of slaves and of free men in
ancient Greece, as described by Plato in Book IV  of his Laws:
Did you ever observe that there are two classes of patients…slaves and
free men? And the slave-doctors run about and cure the slaves or wait for
them in dispensaries. Practitioners of this sort never talk to their patients
individually or let them talk about their own individual complaints. The
slave-doctor prescribes what mere experience suggests, as if he had exact
knowledge; and when he has given his orders, like a tyrant, he rushes of f
with equal assurance to some other servant who is ill…. But the other
doctor , who’ s a freeman, attends and practices upon freemen; and he carries
his enquiries far back, and goes into the nature of the disorder; he enters
into discourse with the patient and with his friends, and is at once getting
information from the sick man, and also instructing him as far as he is able;
and he will not prescribe for him until he has first convinced him…. If one
of those empirical physicians, who practice medicine without science, were
to come upon the gentleman physician talking to his gentleman patient and
using the language almost of philosophy , beginning at the beginning of the
disease and discoursing about the whole nature of the body , he would burst
into a hearty laugh. He would say what most of those who are called
doctors always have at their tongues’  end: “Foolish fellow ,” he would say ,
“you are not healing the sick man, but educating him; and he does not want
to be made a doctor , but to get well.”
 
Exceptional patients do indeed want to be educated and made “doctors” of
their own cases. One of the most important roles they demand of their
physicians is that of teacher . As I began my transformation, people began to tell me things I hadn’ t
heard before. I learned what many doctors are like in their of fices. They
shout. They keep patients waiting for two hours but refuse them five
minutes of discussion. A patient told me that her former physician shouted,
“There’ll be only one fucking cook in this kitchen,” when challenged aboutthe choice of therapy . One physician scolded me for giving books to his
patient, a librarian with cancer . He said, “If you want me to send you any
more patients, you’ll have to check everything with me first.” I told him I
hadn’ t known the patient’ s mind and body belonged to him. One patient
told of walking into a doctor ’s office and finding a sign on the desk that
said, “Com promise means doing it my way .” My advice is, if you see a sign
like that, turn around and walk out. At first I got furious at other doctors. My own anger was also intensified
by the anger that ECaP  group members had been holding in, but was safe to
express in the group. Later I was able to get over my rage, as I understood
how much pain many physicians bear in silence. I realized how the doctor ’s
problems can be turned to a patient’ s advantage.
_OceanofPDF.com_Love_Medicine_n_Miracles_-_Bernie_Siegel.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Love, Medicine & Miracles
Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Sur geon’ s Experience with
Exceptional Patients
OceanofPDF. comBernie S. Siegel, M. D. OceanofPDF. comD e d i c a t i o n
To the Act of Creation
To my parents, Si and Rose, for showing me how to love and hope
To my wife, Bobbie, for putting up with me and for always being there to
learn from and love
To her parents, Merle and Ado, for their courage and humor
To our children, Jonathan, Jef frey, Stephen, and the twins, Carolyn and
Keith, for all the love and beauty they have brought into our lives
To all my exceptional associates, patients, and friends for taking the time to
teach, support, and accept me
To Victoria Pryor, Carol Cohen, Gary Selden—acknowledging how much
love, acceptance, and for giveness a sur geon requires to complete a book
OceanofPDF. comContents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Reflections and Thoughts on Love, Medicine & Miracles
Introduction
I. Minding The Body
1. The Privileged Listener
2. The Healing Partnership
3. Disease and the Mind
4. The Will to Live
II. Embodying The Mind
5. Beginning the Journey
6. Focusing the Mind for Healing
7. Images in Disease and Healing
8. Becoming Exceptional
9. Love and Death
Appendix
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
OceanofPDF. comReflections and Thoughts on Love, Medicine & Miracles
There are several things I am happy to share with you since the writing of
Love, Medicine & Miracles. I retired from the practice of sur gery in 1989, because by that time more
health care professionals were willing to listen to my message. Once they
understood that my work had a scientific basis, they were willing to accept
it. I no longer had to keep explaining myself but could instead share my
experience and therefore help more people by what I had learned. Ten or
twenty years ago if they listened, they were more likely to ar gue about the
validity of what I was saying. I appeared on all the talk shows as an
excellent source of conflict and controversy. There was much
misunderstanding of the statements I made regarding the role of illness in a
person’ s life. I spent a good deal of time defending myself and explaining
what I meant. The point I was trying to make related to the fact that an
illness had ef fects on a person’ s life beyond just the physical dimension. There were beneficial side ef fects and a freedom to live that some people
obtained from their disease because it made them aware of their mortality. Since we are all mortal, why did some people need to be ill to have the
freedom to live their unique lives and experience the beneficial side ef fects. Today the health professionals and talk shows are asking for
information. I am more often a source of inspiration, not inflammation. Both doctors and patients need healing and are far more ready to listen and
learn today. As a matter of fact, I recently read a very moving book by a
physician whose wife died of cancer. In the book he apologizes to me. Now,
he and I never met and he has nothing to apologize for, except his previous
beliefs. The message he shares through his writing is that he has learned
that his family had a unique and dif ficult experience, not just a diagnosis
that one prescribed treatment for. My teachings and meditations were
important to him and his wife as they lived the experience. Suddenly hope
and love became very important complementary therapies. Before writing this introduction I reread my previously published books
and was not disappointed by what I read. There is a good deal of important
and useful information within them. They are good training manuals forthose facing adversity. I am even wiser today, due to my further experience
with adversity and what I have learned since writing these books and
starting Exceptional Cancer Patients in 1978. I want to share what I have
learned in the intervening time. One of the things I have learned is that I haven’ t discovered anything
new about survival behavior. The message is an age-old one and can be
found in the words of the prophets of the past and those struggling to
survive today’ s difficulties, from exceptional patients to members of
Alcoholics Anonymous and the Marines. Science and medicine certainly
have confirmed through recent research the personality profile and
psychology associated with survival behavior and how they af fect the
body’ s chemistry and healing ability. Information about healing and surviving has been handed down to us
for thousands of years by all the great prophets and spiritual leaders. What I
have learned is that their message is similar to my own. When one finds a
common theme in the writings of those who are healers, one knows there is
truth in them. If I were rewriting my books today I would be sure to include
the messages of these healers and the most recent scientific support of the
advantages of this kind of behavior and lifestyle. If I were rewriting Love, Medicine & Miracles, I might consider
changing its title to The Side Effects of Cancer. Healing is hard work, as is
any change one must make in one’ s life. I and others have learned, however,
that the side ef fects of cancer may not all be bad ones. Yes, cancer, can kill
and we tend to think of side ef fects as problems, but there are good side
effects too. An awareness of one’ s mortality can lead you to wake up and
live an authentic, meaningful life. I can read you an article entitled “Thank
God I Have Cancer. ” The ‘Thank God’  is for the time the cancer gave the
author to learn about the beauty, kindness and love that are here for us to
share. These side ef fects also produce a longer life as their byproduct. The ugly duckling had to do a lot of personal work to find himself and
his beauty and to heal his life. He had no support from his family or health
professionals to help him find self-esteem and love. He found it in his
reflection. I feel that a patient should not have to go through the same
struggle. One’ s family and the medical profession should be able to educate
and instruct about appropriate survival behavior when adversity, in the form
of an illness, occurs in life. The issue is not about living forever and testing
God, but utilizing all of the physical and emotional forces available forhealing. The mind and body are not separate units, but one integrated
system. How we act and what we think, eat, and feel are all related to our
health. Physicians should be capable of teaching this behavior to patients. I
spend more time teaching now than ever, and my most grateful patients are
the ones who thank me for teaching them how to deal with all of life’ s
difficulties, not just the physical ones. Medical education does not deal with many of the dif ficulties
physicians must confront in themselves and their patients. Physicians need
to be good technicians and know how to prescribe, but for healing to occur
they also need to incorporate philosophy and spirituality into their
treatment. We need to feel as well as think. When one’ s existence is
threatened there are more issues and questions to confront than what
medicine to take, or operation to under go. As one woman wrote, we need a
mutual investment society—the patient and the doctors investing in each
other. So how do you display survival behavior and find a good doctor who
knows how to use his or her expertise and be your teacher. Ask the doctor
if he or she has ever been criticized by his or her family, patients or nurses. If the answer is yes, that is the doctor to use. Why. Because that is someone
there is hope for. You don’ t criticize someone you don’ t think is willing to
listen, learn and hopefully change. As the poet Rumi said, “Y our criticism
polishes my mirror. ” Good doctors understand this. The nurses also know
the capable, caring physicians from their experience with them, so ask their
opinion and don’ t hesitate to speak up if you are not treated with respect. Submissive behavior is not survival behavior. Be the human being, not the
diagnosis or room number. I mentioned that as I reviewed my previous writings I felt satisfied with
the content. My next feeling was simply remembering the many wonderful
and loving people who were and still are my teachers. Now that I am not
sitting down with them for several hours each week, I miss them, and
rereading their stories really brought that home to me. So many religions and philosophies tell us how to find our way or path. What they are all trying to tell us is to pay attention to our feelings and let
them guide us. If you ignore your body and its messages, at some point you
will suf fer the consequences. Two of Christ’ s messages sum it up very well. “He who seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who is willing to lose his
life will save it. ” I interpret this to mean that we lose our authentic lifewhen we give in to the demands of others, or we become something others
want us to be in order to gain their love or simply continue to be cared for. When we awaken to our mortality, we refuse to live the life that is killing us
and start living and being our true selves. On a practical level it may mean
changing occupations, moving, healing or ending relationships and bringing
meaning and a new attitude into life and working for the right Lord. Your life is stored in your body. Christ’ s second message is, “If you do
not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy
you. If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save
you. ” He is talking about our feelings and body memories, and is quite
correct. The earliest spiritual writings tell us to sit quietly and listen. The
Kabbalah gives specific instructions on how to hear the voice of God and be
enlightened so that your wisdom can be used to help others. Survivors take
time to be still and listen. You may call it meditation, imagery, relaxation or
journal writing but it all amounts to finding time to be still and listen to the
voice within you and the voice which will come to you. I often have this
experience when I am out jogging or bicycling by myself with nothing to
distract me. Take the time to listen. If you listen, you will learn your
purpose here and be able to die joyfully, knowing that you have served in
your way and fulfilled the reasons for your creation. Survivors deal with the
spiritual, existential and emotional aspects of their lives. When we commit
ourselves to egoless, unconditional love, true healing begins. We are then
not devoted to changing people but devoted to the people. Love itself is a
miraculous healing force. In a sense it is the miracle and the reason for
being. So ask yourself what lesson you are here to learn and learn that
lesson by the way you distribute your love to the world. Remember the
blindness of love does great things to obliterate the wounds of the world. We say love is blind because it helps us to see the world in a way that is
significant for survival. Love’ s blindness is therapeutic because it allows us
to function without storing the images of life’ s difficulties within us. I tell
people, “If you can’ t love at least develop amnesia so you can live a more
peaceful life, unable to remember all the things people did to upset you. I
am here to help you survive and so is our creator. ” If God weren’ t
intelligent, loving ener gy then none of us would be here today. The ability
to heal has been built into us and into all living things. God doesn’ t play
favorites. We get upset when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, butnot by our ability to become resistant to disease. They are both survival
mechanisms put there by our creator to sustain life in a balanced way. Do not live a role. Live an authentic life. Many people die when they
can’t work anymore due to their illness. They do not see relationships as
providing another reason for living. On the other hand a mother of nine may
not die because of her children but the year after they leave home she dies. Find your life and live it.
He stopped practicing surgery because more healthcare professionals were willing to listen to his message and accept it, and he no longer had to constantly explain and defend himself.
Why did the author, Bernie S. Siegel, stop practicing surgery?
The author believes that an illness can have beneficial effects on a person's life, making them aware of their mortality and encouraging them to live an authentic life.
What is the author's main point about the role of illness in a person's life?
The author believes that medicine and doctors should focus on empowering patients to take control of their own health and well-being, rather than just treating their physical symptoms.
What is the author's opinion on the role of medicine and doctors?
The author is encouraging patients to take an active role in their own healing and well-being, and to focus on finding their own inner strength and resilience.
What is the author's message to patients?
The author believes that doctors should not only focus on treating the patient's physical condition but also provide emotional support and guidance, and help patients mobilize their mental powers to fight the disease.
What is the author's opinion on the role of doctors in a patient's life?