She was a nice new yorker in her mid-sixties--probably read the Sunday New York Times, probably believed in Galileo and Darwin. Chest pain, the chart read--an emergency room doctor’s bread and butter.
So how can I help you today, Mrs. Weiss? I inquired.
She fixed me with a look and shot back, Do you practice holistic medicine?
Huh?
Do you use cayenne pepper?
What?
She rolled her eyes. I don’t want any of your medicines, just cayenne pepper.
I’d started medical school vowing to include all of my patients’ social, psychological, spiritual, and biological makeup in the healing process. Above all, I would keep my eyes open to medicine’s limitations and to the beneficent mysteries of other belief systems.
That was 18 years ago.
In an even tone I answered, Mrs. Weiss, you seem to have arrived in my emergency room. Your chest pain suggests a serious heart problem. And ...
