good morning. welcome to my say i mosaic. and i'm thrilled to our guest this morning. good morning. >> thank you for having me. >> the doctor and i have worked extensively on a conference that we were putting together. it's a medical respect live conference called love made medicine. and so that's why i'm so happy to have him here because i know that you'll be able to tell us about medicine these days that is getting more and more

important and more and more in the news. tell us about your background and what made you go into medicine. >> i was born many lebanon. i'm a lebanon degrees christian. and mean i came to the united states to go to college. i was in texas at the university of texas in austin for college and went to medical school in houston. i finished my medical school there and did my residency at the texas medical center and i came to san francisco for cardiology training and have been working in san francisco for the last 11 years. >> and the doctor is a

cardiologist and specialized in internal medicine. >> what made you go into medicine? >> that is an interesting question. since i was away from the faith at the time. i can't say it was a calling that i recognized and followed. but i had started off my studies as an engineer. i have an liti have and -- analytical mind and i like to figure things out. but i could use my skills and apply them to human interactions and i took that route and it has been very gratifying for me and i'm glad that i went into medicine.

i think it corresponds well to what i can do. >> one of the thing that i know about your practice is that your catholicism is the forefront of you. i think this is more of a vocation than a job. >>i think so. people have this reversion of faith, it comes with a great deal of force. you have to sketch is it out all these years. so it was clear that the faith would play an important role in all aspect s of my life, including my practice. so i started to learning about the faith, trying to get a better appreciation of what it means to be a human person and

that is one of the things to practice medicine t seems essential that the understanding of the person will affect the practice of medicine. so that is the ongoing evolution because it's a journey. you know what it means for you to become a better doctor and better serve the needs of the patient. >> and in the next segment. we'll talk more about the practice. stay with us, folks here on mosaic.

welcome back i'm vicky evans. our guest this morning is a unique doctor, i think.

i think you feel a special place in medicine. and the reason i say that is because if you look at his business card, on the reverse side, the front is his name of course is his name and cardiologist and internal medicine. the back says heart, body soul and medicine for the whole person what does that mean? >> that is a good question. i'll tell you what i reflected upon. clearly health care is in a crisis. and it's important to understand what is it roots of the crisis. and to make a long story short it occurs to me that the --

most -- a lot of medicine is based on the medical times that views the body primarily as a machine. and that is in effect of the modern age when fill loss philosophy started to focus on the aspect of things more than the spiritual or the formal aspect. and, don't get me wrong, has provided us a tremendous advantage for scientific achievement. they have been outstanding and we're reaping the benefits all the time, treatment for cancer and heart disease and what not. these are very good thing. but nevertheless, if you just think about illness and disease purely in material terms, you miss part of the picture.

because we -- we're not just mature beings and molecules and what not floating around. there's an organizing principle. and the organizing principle is the soul. it's the soul that gives us this thing called human beings. and if you think of a human person as mattered informed by soul, it gives you a different understanding and different perspective how to approach disease, we should apply times and the fruits assigned to the treatment of people. but it means that the approach, particular whether i it comes to a -- particularly when it comes to a crisis or illness,

it needs to keep in mind that we're not just dealing with a mechanic structure, like a car mechanic. and how does that -- in practice, what does that mean? i'm not really sure. it's still a journey that needs to be explored. and i'm not the only one that has raised that point. there's a famous physician that died this year at the age of 92 that is really considered the farther of this. about 20, 30 years ago he raised that point. he said that medicine needs a new philosophy to take into account body and soul. you can think of of ways that

would have we would not be talking about an assembly line kind medicine that a lot of people complain about if you think of patients as persons, the whole idea that you can deal with problems very quickly or routinely or -- the patient is informed by an individual, spiritual soul and it has its own unique richness and internal life that needs to be addressed and respected and embraced. >> bottom line, is if you're treating a person, you have to treat the whole person

includinged individual soul? >> that's correct. but as a physical, you have to be could go sure that you don't overstep what your role is. but you're aware that every illness is really a threat to the integrity of the body and the soul. and, therefore, it has repercussions on the spiritual and the physical. and sometimes you have to address it. but frequently there may be a dimension of involvement of the

-- an eif he can of the illness -- the effect on the illness on the spiritual dimension of the person that you need to take into account. and a lot of patients are shy to bring it up and they don't bring up their concerns about the deep threat that they feel from the illness that is important to address that. >> so it will be good to look at some concrete examples of that when we get back from the break. you can let us know how that works in practiced. we'll be back in a few minutes. stay with us on mosaic.

welcome back to mosaic. i'm your host vicky evans from the san francisco archdiocese. and we're having a fascinating conversation how the soul informs the body and how the doctor looks at the whole person when he treats someone. you were going to tell us the implications of using concrete examples. >> right. i would like to mention this is not -- it doesn't mean that we're practicing french medicine. it is the fruits of medical science to deal with illnesses. but the implication, when we're confronted with specific crisis, it's primarily it's important to recognize that

there are frequently spiritual dimension to the illness. and i must say that everybody, including patients and physicians and myself as well, we're all conditioned by the practice of medicine that is primarily material. and so we all focus and think primarily in terms of the material and that is familiar with us right now. so my practice in many ways is not that different from the practice of another doctor. you'll continue to find medical treatments the way other doctors are applied. but the main difference at this point is to open the door to talking about this additional dimension. and in order to open the door, you have to have the time. so recognizing that the time spent with the patient is very important. >> the discussion. >> the discussion to allow this relationship between the

patient and the doctor to mature and become fruitful. it may not happen the first visitor the next visit. patients may be a little bit uncomfortable talking about i spiritual faith, but not always, or primarily they're -- conditioned like doctors are conditioned to focusing on the material. give met drug and the treatment and the surgery and what not and fix this and it goes away. and that is good. we should not lose track of that but we should recognize it could have implications on the spiritual and address that as well. and that if it's clear that the illness affected the spirit to the point that the patient needs better spiritual guidance then you can make a referral

for that. but frequently the spirit may find itself as physical problems and that is more and more common. i frequently see people that come who, for the most part are manifesting physical symptoms that are at the root to the spiritual product. >> >> mean like stress? >> correct, stress, a particular problem with god or neighbor or both. you're not going to say you have a spiritual problem because most people are conditioned to think of their problems in illness terms. but you have to take it on case- by-case basis to be able to

recognize when you're dealing with a spiritual problem at its root and be able to make the distinctions and treat accordingly. >> and that comes with experience and wisdom that i doubt they can teach you at medical school. >> correct. and i'm sure i have a lot to learn in that respect as well. >> how long have you been in practice? >> 11 years. i finished medical school 20 years ago. but in practice for 11 years. >> so that is what sets your practice apart from other medical practices? >> i hope it will achieve some of the goals that i have set out for myself to be able to treat patients better. i have a private practice. and i sort of tried to limit my involvement with other organizations and other systems to serve the patient directly

and be accountable only to the patient and not have other entities to deal with that might influence my relationship with the patient. >> and that gets us into the area of the doctor/patient relationship. and these days i know it's been compromised because of the cost others. can you go into that a little bit? >> it's a complicated matter. but it goes back to what i said earlier about viewing illnesses as primarily a mature problem. and if you view the body primarily as a machine, which has been the case for about a

hundred years or more, the medical encounter really doesn't fit in such a model. so as long as that you have special model, you'll create problems and i think that is relevanted directly to the view of the patient as a machine, which has intensified organizations to try to find medicine along the lines of industrial processor commercial process. >> and you cannot do that what it's a personal relationship like that with your patient. >> have the patients been accepting of this technique? >>i think so. i hope so. i think so. you have to ask them. >> but you have not had a mass

exodus? >> yes. >> so that must mean it's working. do you think with everything going on in health care that your practice is going to be hurt or helped by all of this, by the potential rationing? >> clearly i'm hoping and i pray that my practice will flourish. it's hard to predict what will happen in health okay there are a lot of moving -- health care. there are a lot of moving parts. they may be articulated in different ways by different people. but there's some frustration about the way medicine is being delivered. >> let's pick up on that when we get back from the break. i think it's an interesting topic that deserves a lot of

attention. stay with us, folks. we'll be back.

welcome back. one thing that i wanted to mention is that the doctor has a website that you may want to visit to hear more about this soul/body connection. police take a look. the other important thing is that, you have a certification from the national catholic bioethics, which is important. >> these are important issues. i took advantage of the certification program that they

offer last year. it was very helpful because it crystallizes the reasons why the church comes up with its own teachings on bioethical issues. you try to go peeper to understand what that is about. and it's foreign have reasons for -- it's important to have reasons for the teachings. >> and that is exactly right. and the church accused of being citizens science and they're not mutually exclusive. >> it's quite the opposite. >> the church doesn't make scientific pronouncements obviously. we have been talking about the

cost and doctor/patient relationships. >> right. there's this notion of viewing the body as a machine that has been dominant in the last hundred years. it has done a lot of good with the research and scientific to provide treatment. but it's been a disservice in the delivery of care in terms of the doctor/patient relationship because of the cost and what not. >> because more of an assembly line? >> yes, and the relationship between the doctor and the patient, which is more and more contractual relationship and more and more legaltic and bureaucratic. many doctors are still very involved with their patients as persons. i'm not trying to say that doctors don't do that but it's

become more and more difficult for them to do so because they are under so many pressures. >> society is when it is. >> correct. >> and it's unfortunate. if you think about it. >> anyway. i wish we have a longer show. but we don't. so please visit our website. thank you for being with us this morning.

the bay area is a crowded place. as we grow, many times some are forgotten. this is the communication director for wild care. it educates of coexisting with animals that those that need a little helping hand. very good to meet