Shifting Focus Last Saturday I attended a charity benefit for a group that supports research for children with cancer. At one point during the evening there was a special grant presentation for a gentleman who I'll call Dr. B. - an author, professor, noted cancer researcher, and the director of pediatric neurosurgery at a leading U.S. research hospital. Over the years, Dr. B, a pioneer in his field, had received more than $1.1 million in grants for cancer research for children from this group alone. During his speech, Dr. B. shared with the crowd that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer the year before. And although it was an aggressive cancer, it was caught early enough for treatment to be effective. He said that his cancer experience had given him a better appreciation of the value of time and of his loved ones. And then he made a startling comment: He said that for the first time it also made him shift his focus away from thinking just about a cure for cancer, and instead wonder about the causes of cancer and their possible prevention. Here's a remarkably well educated man, a renowned figure in the field of cancer research, who by all outward appearances is thoughtful and compassionate, saying that after a career of 16 years in medicine, he had just recently thought about considering the cause of cancer for the first time. Believe me, I'm not taking Dr. B. to task personally - the world would be a better place with more Dr. B's in it. But his remark made me realize that the mainstream medical profession still has a "total vision" problem when it comes to treatment. It seems to me that there's something fundamentally wrong with the system when someone as accomplished as Dr. B. has focused on cures for more than a decade and a half without ever questioning the causes. Imagine how much more advanced the field of cancer treatment might be if the best and the brightest, like Dr. B., were being trained by a system that made prevention as high a priority as cures. To Your Good Health, Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute | 
