Abstract
The historical record shows that in Medieval Europe some Jewish parents would kill their children and then themselves in order to avoid forced conversion. From our perspective, it is hard to imagine what thought process would allow such callous actions, and by extension any ideologically driven atrocity. Rabbi Haym Soloveichik 1 explains the first case by highlighting how in the Middle Ages the hereafter seemed almost palpable and thoughts of eternal life, and most terrifyingly damnation, were real daily concerns. Sacrificing a few years in this world to guarantee life everlasting was a price considered, at least by some, to be worth paying. There were certainly many others who were not happy with this calculation and did indeed convert to some degree and take their chances with eternity.
It is easy to celebrate the fact that we have largely thrown off these shackles of superstition – until reading his analogy. Shaking us from complacency, he uses a chilling analogy of a paediatric oncology service – where we do terrible things to children in the hope that we will allow them to live for a few decades in this world. Taken further, what would an alien think if they looked into a hospital without any knowledge of its purpose? She would undoubtedly believe it was some palace of torture where people are imprisoned, assaulted and poisoned, some of whom leave alive while others disappear. Most people who read this might feel some disgust at the analogy understanding that a hospital is a place of hope and heroics where difficult things may be necessary in order to offer a chance of improved living.
Perhaps we should take stock. Are we now so convinced as a society about the overwhelming benevolence of medicine that we are blind to its excesses? We are so concerned about missing the unlikely that we dare not question whether the blood test, biopsy or scan is really necessary and encourage people to be oblivious to the harm that they may cause. More medicine is, by definition, good. As doctors, we order tests ‘just to be on the safe side’ or ‘to rule it out’. How many interventions – usually painful dangerous or both – do we do without really knowing if they work? As patients, we jostle with each other, desperate to take part and be involved as much as possible in the medical ritual, our belief in the ultimate benefit blinding us to the real cost.
There are common themes among all belief systems, one of which is that taken to extremes the rational can cease to be so. Medicine, as a healer of all ills and a means of warding off death, is not exempt from this. There are stirrings of healthy heresy afoot, the movement challenging unquestioning medicine is gaining pace, albeit more in theory than practice. The unchecked desire to do what we believe is good can be the most dangerous of all, while it is easy to challenge the beliefs of others we do well to occasionally at least, challenge our own.