Daily Meditation: Sunday, December 14, 1997

Doctors should understand that merely healing the sick is …

12/14/1997

Doctors should understand that merely healing the sick is not sufficient. They should also put a few truths in their patients' heads at the same time. I ask a doctor this question: - ‘You have made these people better, haven't you. But did they subsequently change their lifestyle? Are they not going to continue their ridiculous ways and become ill again?' - ‘Well yes, unfortunately this is true.' So it is clear that before agreeing to cure people, doctors should enlighten their patients in order to prevent them from falling prey to the same excesses and victim of the same imbalances. If I were a doctor I would simply refuse to look after people who did not first promise me to improve their lifestyle. Since I would not ask to be paid I would ask them at least to pay the Lord by improving themselves. And if they refused to make this promise I would send them elsewhere. Of course, if someone has just been rescued from the water or is suffocating, that is not the time to extract promises from them. They have to be saved. But I want doctors to understand it is not sufficient to cure people ‘for the time being', they should also enlighten them so they may find permanent good health again.