Welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Challenge! It's Sunday and Day 16.
Yesterday was Ask me Anything, and I have two questions to attend to:
Martha wanted to know what my favourite Starbucks beverage was, and you'd be surprised to hear it's not some elaborate drink but a simple (doppio) espresso. I don't like milk or whipped cream, so that excludes all the fancy - and sugar loaded - Frappuccinos.
More importantly to know about me though, I joined Starbucks as a non-coffee drinker, hard to believe, but true. As I drove to my first job interview, I was nervous for this reason. Surely they were going to ask what my favourite beverage was, or, at the very least, offer me a cup of coffee.
You know what happened instead?
The meeting took place in a small meeting room in the neighbour building. Meaning far away from the office kitchen / training room they remodeled to look like the coffee bar in a Starbucks store. The CEO's assistant actually apologized for not being able to offer any coffee, but she brought a selection of bottled water and sodas. Perfect!
After being hired, I quickly found out that there's many types of coffee, and the ones I had tried - and hated - in the past, were high in acidity and roasted lightly. Turns out I was more of the dark roast type, and to this day that's what I enjoy.
Now on to Jeanine's question:
What do I believe is possible when it comes to spiritual healing?
The other day she wrote about a blind experiment in a hospital that she read about in a book by Lynne McTaggart, where a group of people was asked to pray for a number of patients in a hospital in order to help them recover quickly. There was of course another group of patients who did not benefit from the healing prayers, and as it turned out, their medical outcome was less favorable.
So far so good. Science and spirituality do not exclude each other. I am totally open to believe that the two can actually go hand in hand, and that there is more to life than black and white, and than the human eye can see.
I am convinced that a positive attitude, a supportive environment and loved ones who are looking after you, will help you in any aspects of life, be it to study well and write tests in school, to grow up to becoming a decent human being, or in medical situations, to have a successful treatment and a speedy recovery.
 |
| Photo by Olga Kononenko on Unsplash |
Now here's the twist to that experiment:
The praying happened years after the fact!
That's where I have a hard time believing this was possible. How is this supposed to work retroactively?
Upon googling I came across a study that may actually be the one Jeanine is talking about.
The patients (median age 72) all suffered from a bloodstream infection of various sources, and they were hospitalized at Rabin Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel, between 1990 and 1996.
There was what they call the intervention group = the group that was prayed for, I want to call this "Group I", which included 1,691 patients, and the control group = the 1,702 people who were not included in positive thoughts, "Group C".
The prayers happened in July 2000. Meaning by that time the patients had completed their treatment, went home, resumed their lives (or passed away at the hospital or later in time.)
How was the experiment conducted?
A random number generator was used to randomize the patients into two groups. The groups were similar with regard to the main risk factors for death.
A coin was tossed to designate the patients to the groups. A list of the first names of the patients in Group I was given to a person who said a short prayer for the well being and full recovery of the group as a whole.
So, technically the statistical fate had been sealed at the moment the coin was tossed. The patients were either in group I or group C.
What factors were the researchers were looking at?
- Number of deaths in hospital
- Duration of fever
- Length of stay in hospital from the day of the first positive blood culture to discharge or death
What was the outcome?
The mortality for Group I was 28%, and for Group C 30%. To me that is not a significant difference. Plus, everybody will probably agree that sadly there's no prayer that will bring back people who died.
The statement about the fever scenario was as follows: Patients were defined as having fever on a specific day if one of three temperature measurements taken on that day showed a temperature of >37.5°C. What I can tell from the chart - and I'm not a statistics whizz - is that on average the number of fever days is the same for both groups.
Can I just say how I am bothered by how meager the chart is when it comes to talk about the fever and the duration of the hospital stay?
 |
| Source: National Library of Medicine |
Now I will admit, the maximum days looks shocking, but bear with me, if I interpret it correctly, the median is still very much comparable. 7 hospital days for Group I, versus 8 days for Group C. Considering the low median, it takes a lot of patients with a short hospital stay to balance out what is probably a very small number, (maybe even one single person) of extraordinarily poor souls who spent 165, respectively 320 days at the hospital.
In conclusion, in order to have me convinced of this study, I would expect way more drastic outcomes. But hey, we have medical doctors and an MIT graduate among this group, I'm looking at you, Amrita, Dominique and Roy, who may shed light on this in a more founded way than I can as a layperson.
I'd like to add one more thing, not related to this study, but that I am deeply convinced of:
How about dividing patients into the following groups:
- Patients who were listened to intently and taken seriously by their medical provider
- Patients whose doctors who dealt with them in an abrupt manner and dismissed them
Now I would love to see these statistics! I believe the difference would be significant, even if the technical treatment and prescribed meds were the same. Add to that the supportive environment I was talking about in the beginning, plus a healing prayer from Jeanine and Kebba, and these patients will be back to gardening, baking and sewing in no time. I may be looking at Martha here ;-)
Let me know what you think!
Wrapping up this post, I'd like to include today's official prompt, which is
Share a song lyric or the phrase you live by with your community.
I think it's only fitting to choose "that's what Friends are for" by Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight. Did you know it was originally recorded by Rod Stewart?
… Keep smilin', keep shinin' One of my favorites. Brenda Fluharty
ReplyDeleteThose are very interesting statistics!
ReplyDeleteI have issues with the design of the study. For me, praying after the fact and relating it to previous outcomes is a hard one to get past...
ReplyDeleteSong lyrics for me? Right now, it's Drive by Incubus. It's about not being driven by fear or making decisions based on fear. It's a song from the late 1990s/early 2000s. I didn't know what the name of the group meant until today. I don't love that, but the song still has meaning for me!
Thanks for answering my question Tamara! Would you believe at almost 75 years old, I've NEVER had a cup of coffee?? I was delivering for Door Dash and when I went to pick up from Starbucks, they asked me if I wanted a coffee, told them i didn't drink it. So they gave me a strawberry creamy type drink. I forgot what it was other than delicious! I also love that song and as Brenda says, keep smiling and keep shining! Hey that could be Lia's theme song! Hugs and love.
ReplyDeleteNot going to touch that (perhaps scientific, but probably not) study with a twenty foot pole1
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for answering my question!! That does sound like the study she described in the book, except I remembered the positive results being deemed significant. Maybe I got that part wrong. I do know that there were other studies, not involving people, where the results suggested that something they did in the future affected results in the past. But I am no scientist. I'm more on the healing side of things. I love that you included our beloved UBC bloggers in this post. That's awesome.
ReplyDelete