An interview with Jeff Kane, MD, author of "How To Heal: A Guide for Caregivers" by Suzie Daggett
SD – “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (CAM) seems more popular than ever. What is it?
JK - The terms “complementary,” “alternative,” “integrative,” and “holistic” describe approaches to diagnosis and treatment by practitioners other than standard medical doctors. The majority of Americans now use one or more CAM techniques in addition to standard medical care. CAMs include acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition, bodywork, kinesiology, and many more disciplines.
SD – How do you assist in the healing process?
JK - I facilitate the patient support group at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital’s Cancer Center, which means I deal with the non-medical aspects of cancer. When you think about it, what cancer patients suffer from is, surprisingly, not tumors, but their own emotions. That phenomenon is understandable and entirely normal. Cancer—and every other disease, for that matter—comprises two simultaneous events: first, their physiology is affected, and second, they suffer, they have a bad time. We physicians are taught how to treat physical disease, but are not taught how to treat suffering.
Treating suffering is more important than ever today because two-thirds of all visits to healthcare practitioners are for chronic—which is to say incurable—ailments. We can help relieve most of their symptoms, but we will not cure these people, so we need to develop ways to alleviate their suffering. This task, by the way, is in no way “complementary” or “alternative:” it’s obligatory. The major skill involved in alleviating people’s suffering is simply listening to them.
SD – How did you shift from a standard medical practice?
JK– In the mid-1970s, after practicing medicine a decade, I concluded there was something unaddressed in medical practice. I saw that sick people needed help in navigating their discomforts. I knew how to manipulate their molecules, but knew nothing about how they experienced sickness or how to help them cope.
I also noticed that people didn’t seem to manifest diseases randomly; how they got sick seemed intimately connected to how they led their lives. Some connection was obvious: smoking and emphysema, ulcers and stress, people who are accident-prone. But it also seemed was a wider or even universal pattern, too, and I had no handle on that. In addition, I had no skills for dealing with suffering. Something had to change for me. I left my practice—as chief of an emergency department in the Bay Area—and began to study the subject on my own.
SD – What attracts patients to CAM practitioners?
JK – The most common and passionate criticism patients have of standard medical care is that it’s impersonal. People are longing for contact, for relationship. Whatever else happens in an encounter with CAM practitioners, patients find closer relationships. Look at how this works. For one thing, CAM practitioners generally spend more time with their clients than medical doctors do; they evaluate people in a more individual way; they physically touch more; and most alternative practices require more treatment participation on the part of the client, say in terms of dietary changes, exercise and insight. Regardless of the type of CAM discipline, the patient usually comes away feeling more noticed, heard, appreciated.
Of course, I’m generalizing here: I know a number of medical doctors who happen to be quite accomplished at relationship, and a few CAM practitioners who are impersonal as posts.
SD – What can someone do to alleviate suffering from a chronic illness?
JK - Find a way to navigate the illness. Even an incurable illness can be something you can live with, manipulate, learn from, and grow with. Cancer’s no picnic, but it can have positive effects especially because it underlines our mortality. Knowing we won’t be around indefinitely can be a potent stimulant toward doing whatever it is we need to do in this lifetime. I’ve regularly witnessed illness force people to change what’s not working in their lives, live more fully. They repair personal relationships, connect with their thoughts and feelings, gain insights they might not have attained any other way.
SD – Any final words?
JK – I suggest people use healthcare resources thoughtfully. Standard medical practice is especially effective with infection, trauma, many cancers and for certain surgical techniques. CAMs can help people examine and renovate their lives. And there’s no reason not to use multiple approaches.
Jeff Kane, MD, is author of "How To Heal: A Guide for Caregivers" (Allworth Press, NY, 2003), and facilitator of the Patient Support Group at Sierra Nevada Cancer Center, Grass Valley. This interview was published July 4, 2003
as part of "Healing Journeys" …a column in "The Union" newspaper, highlighting the variety of health practitioners and their modalities in Nevada County written by Suzie Daggett.
