I have taken a few quotes from an article by Dr. David Spiegel which tells of the importance of medical compassion in the health of each individual. This is the desire if MCI. We do not want to just give money for the sake of the projects but we want to promote the care of the whole person with each project.
If the following quotes spark an interest, please read the whole article by clicking the link above.
“We don’t have a health care system but rather a disease cure system. The public believes and many doctors behave as if most illnesses are curable. We think of the body as if it were a machine with replaceable parts: defects can be identified, removed and replaced through treatments like organ transplants, drugs and gene therapy. With a few exceptions, this is not the case.”
“The expectation of cure has led to an explosion of invasive, expensive and often risky interventions that have at best marginal effects on survival. We have focused too much on diseases and too little on the people who have the diseases.”
“Surgical and other medical procedures have made an enormous difference in people’s lives. But our health care system overvalues procedures at the expense of the old-fashioned medical compassion and concern that doctors and their patients used to take for granted.”
“Medicine’s oldest adage is ‘to cure rarely, to relieve suffering often and to comfort always.’ In this century, we have twisted that job description: many doctors think their task is to cure rather than care. We need more compassion and counseling and less cutting and testing. The myth of cure is costly in human and financial terms; the price of dashed hopes is high. With a focus on care, many individuals with serious diseases can lead longer, happier and more productive lives.”
