What’s the Problem with Medical Schools

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What’s the Problem with Medical Schools

I want to explore the way we educate physicians in this country. There’s a lot of research around this in the United States medical education that we take caring compassionate people into our medical schools so it does not look as though the problem is our selection, people come with open hearts and with compassion and love. There is a lot of data that looks at what happens one year into medical training, two years into medical training. What the studies show is that one year, two years into training empathy and compassion in the people that were empathetic loving people when they came in has plummeted.

They self report that their medical care not surprisingly is different. This is not surprising. I guess the simple way to say this is I believe if we cannot sit with our own suffering as physicians, we can’t sit with the suffering of our patients. I’m comfortable dealing with your diabetes and hypertension because I have the tools to fix that I believe and I’m trained to do that. I don’t even want to open the door if I even knew what questions to ask that might reveal your suffering because I don’t know how to be present with that. I’d love your thoughts on that, those comments, how do we begin to train and have our learners, our physicians to be and other healthcare providers put emotion at the same level as the intellect?

We are still, if you want flowers to grow in your garden, you don’t have to think flowers, you don’t have to chant flowers, you just have to think of soil, manure, water, sunlight, nothing to do with flowers. If you handle filth well flowers will happen.

That’s good, if you handle filth well flowers will happen, write that down.

Those people who think of flowers, they will end up with Chinese made plastic flowers. They will not have flowers. We’re again thinking of empathy, compassion, love. These are all consequences of a human being being in a certain way. We’re trying, see the whole approach of the intellect is go for the fruit, goal oriented. No, not the fruit, the root. You nurture the root, fruit will happen. Fruit is a consequence. You’re shooting for the consequence without being interested in the cause. That’s not going to produce long term results. This is what you’ll end up with, something that works short term and then that itself becomes a huge problem. Right now, healthcare system itself is a huge problem. The very fact that pharmaceutical industry is the second largest industry on the planet speaks volumes about our health, isn’t it.

People tell me I don’t know the statistic these are all things which are being circulated on the internet. They say almost 37% of the medicine, all kinds of medicines manufactured in the world are consumed by Americans themselves. They don’t even account for a minuscule of the population, if they’re consuming 37% either they’re paranoid about their health or really they’re unhealthy. One of these things must be true, isn’t it. We need to look at this. If you want this to enter the medical school, one simple way is if the medical school can start in some way, we can prescribe a method with which first one who wants to touch somebody else’s body should make some effort to know about his own. Something very simple, need not be, like you’re not going to spend 12 years in meditation. I’m sure that’s not practical for you. I’m saying at least 12 days, 12 days everybody can give isn’t it totally focused on the inner happenings of what’s happening.

I can do a simple experiment for you, are you okay if I take you as a subject in experiment? See just your hands okay keep all the five fingers together. Place it gently upon your thigh with your eyes closed, you will inhale and exhale slightly deeper than normal. All of you, most of you are medical professionals so you know much more about these things than me but I want you to just notice how the air fills up into your lungs or in other words where is the maximum expansion and contraction. As you are doing this I will say switch. When I say switch, without breaking the rhythm of your breathing, just turn these hands over, those of you cannot see, I’m raising this, you don’t have to raise this upon your thigh just turn your hand over and continue to breathe and once again when I say switch get back.

In these two positions of the hand, something about your breathe will change, I want you to notice what it is. If you want to notice it, what is needed is your spine should be erect, eyes should be closed and you must be focused on the breath. If you do these three things you will distinctly notice this. All the five fingers should be together. Just breathe slightly deeper than normal, inhalation, exhalation slightly deeper than normal, all five finger together. Switch. Switch again. Please open your eyes. Do you notice some difference? What is it? If you hold it this way the maximum expansion and contraction happens in the lower lobe of the lung so you will notice it in the diaphragm region. If you turn it around, it goes to the middle lobe of the lung, you will notice it higher up. Just take one breath and see it is noticeable.

Is it so? Something so simple most human beings will not take these things into account. Just if you turn your hand around the very way you breathe alters itself, it’s not just the breath. The very way the fundamental life energies function in this body alters itself simply because you turned your hand around. How many times in a day unconsciously are you doing this? I’m hoping to be peaceful, it doesn’t work like that. This is like you got into your car, you don’t know what these three pedal are, just kick any one of them whenever you feel like it, do you know what a jerky driver you will be. That’s what is happened to human beings. It is not that people do not know peace, health, love, joy, they know all these things but it’s jerky it’s not sustainable, isn’t it.

If you did not know a moment of peace or joy you would be on the suicide list. You know peace, you know love, only problem is you can’t hold onto it, isn’t it. That’s because this is a chemical soup. If I do the same ingredients to all of you, soup ingredients to all of you and each one of you makes the soup, you will have still hundred varieties of soups isn’t it, the same ingredients. Yes or no, each home it tastes different just the way you make it. This is the same thing, same ingredients, just the way you make it within yourself isn’t it. Whether it’s health or well being, peace, love, joy, ecstasy, every human experience has a chemical basis to it. Chemistry is not a basis. Chemistry is also a consequence of a different dimension of who you are. I think Mitch was putting up those five koshas and all, in yoga because you’re talking about the mind, in yoga we don’t see anything as mind. All different levels of bodies, physical body, mental body, energy body, intellect body and the other one will not translate well it’s called bliss body in English but that’s the wrong translation.

Physical body is something that you gather because of the food that you eat. What kind of food you eat definitely interpret itself as the nature of the body that you have. Your genetics, the other information has a serious impact but still the design of this building is important. Still the material is also important isn’t it. Even if the design is fabulous, if the material is bad still the whole building may not fall down on our heads but panels could be falling on our heads. This is happening. We’re not considering what we eat as to what is the best thing for this body, so food. The next thing is mental body. There’s a whole intelligence, there’s a network of intelligence across this. When we say mind what are we referring to? A certain level of memory and a certain level of ability to use that memory in the form of intelligence, isn’t it. You tell me, all of you being doctors you know this very well.

A single cell what it is doing, it can freak your mind it is doing that many things, isn’t it, there’s no question about that. Your single cell what it remembers, it can freak your mind once again. See, do you remember ten generations ago how your grandmother looked? No, you have no memory of that. Your body remembers, your grandmother’s nose is still sitting on your face because your body remembers how your forefathers looked a million years ago, it still remembers, isn’t it. Now if I have to speak, I am sitting like this because I have no sitting as thought in mind, it’s very difficult for you to understand. That’s why they diagnosed me as dead because I think with my body. I function with my body, not just with one part. It’s a whole process of life is right now being subjected to thought and people are stressful because what should happen on different levels of your system is all being done in one place. If it’s all done in one place, just living, most people are only taking care of their survival, earning a living, reproducing and dying one day. For that they’re freaked out. They’re not handling some galaxies. Just their lives.