Improved Lives

There’s a fascinating article over at the Boston Globe on Jewish WW 2 survivors from the Lodz ghetto, which was a ghetto in Poland that had as many as 200,000 Jews living in it. The article explains how the doctors in the ghetto, having no access to medicine or equipment of any kind, used what they could scratch together, and in many cases used offered nothing to their patients but their presence and hope.

Ghetto doctors armed with little more than kindness and hope twice saved the life of Bursztajn’s father, Abraham. The first time, said Bursztajn, was when his father fainted after being tortured. A ghetto doctor revived him.

“I will die here,’’ his despairing father said to the doctor, an older man. “One of us will, but it will be me,’’ the physician answered. “I do not have any way to treat you, but you are young. If you don’t give up hope, you will survive.’’

Thanks to that doctor, his father did maintain hope, Bursztajn said, and that hope fueled his courage to resist.

It’s amazing what positive thinking and positive reinforcement from those around you can do to get you through illness, bad times, and whatever other barriers you encounter.

Sometimes, this kind of empathy all by itself can promote healing. In a study published in the July issue of Family Medicine, Dr. David Rakel, director of integrative medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, looked at 350 patients who were randomly assigned to one of three groups: no interaction with a doctor (the patients saw only study staff), a standard visit with a physician, and a visit in which the doctor asked more questions and tried to show more empathy. The patients then rated their doctors on empathy.

Rakel found that the 84 patients in the latter group rated their doctors best and got rid of their colds a day sooner than the others, and they had stronger immune responses on a standard test. Said Rakel: “Kindness matters.’’

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