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A scientific profession bumps up against the inexplicable

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ROSH HASHANAH EDITION 5777
SECTION D

After intense medical intervention, a doctor watches a dying man’s damaged heart deteriorate. Suddenly the heart restores itself to perfect condition, without any explanation. The doctor can only say, “Miraculous.”

Another physician places a 26-week-old infant on the verge of death in his mother’s arms. Although life support had been withdrawn, the infant starts improving dramatically — and the doctor can only say “miraculous.”

Dr. Harley Rotbart, a pediatric specialist in Denver who’s witnessed the inexplicable, has written Miracles We Have Seen: America’s Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can’t Forget.

Reading this collection of 82 inspirational essays by eminent US physicians reveals that there are more exceptions to the worst statistical and evidentiary prognoses than one realizes.

Rotbart first encountered a wondrous reversal in medical fortune in 1980 while he was a second-year pediatrics resident doing his intensive care (ICU) rotation at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

This dramatic near-drowning episode involved two brothers, ages three and seven. It was winter, and the three-year-old had fallen into a swimming pool with enough residual water to drag him under.

The older brother jumped in and pulled his younger sibling to one of the pool’s steps so his head was above water. But the seven-year-old, overwhelmed by the freezing water, started sinking.

Both boys were unconscious when paramedics arrived on the scene.

Although the younger brother regained consciousness within hours and went home a few days later, the older brother remained in a coma. The family, Rotbart and his fellow residents took turns standing vigil, singing to the boy and holding his hand.

“We all prayed,” Rotbart writes. “Not in an organized way, or even a traditional way, but each of us in his or her own way.”

One night, while he was reading to the boy, Rotbart felt the comatose boy squeeze his hand — once.

“This was now weeks into his stay, and because there had been no progress, discussions were beginning in the ICU about discontinuing life support, brain death and organ donation,” he writes.

“I told everyone on rounds the next morning about the hand squeeze. Most of my colleagues and supervisors attributed it to involuntary muscle spasms.

“Medically, by all our measures of brain function and assessments of neurologic recovery, there was not even the slightest possibility that this child could have made a conscious effort to squeeze my hand.”

But another resident felt the same gesture after rounds that morning and in the afternoon — this time in response to a command.

“No one knew quite what to make of it or how much to hope for,” Rotbart writes.

A few days later, the patient opened his eyes. Not long after that, with the breathing tube still in place, he smiled.

Nearly two months after he almost drowned, the boy walked out of the hospital with his family to cheers, tears and one reverberating thought.

“Miraculous.”

From Comas to Accidents to AIDs to Tumors

The accounts in Miracles We Have Seen run the gamut from comas and accidents to AIDS and tumors. Irrespective of a particular diagnosis, most cases are either potentially or irrevocably terminal.

It’s important to note that many patients are not saved by medical miracles in this book.

They died — just not when or how their physicians anticipated.

Their stories entail baffling puzzles that these doctors can never forget.

For instance, a woman with aggressive metastatic breast cancer is given two years to live but survives for 22 years. A man dies in joyful peace and acceptance because he “sees” his deceased wife waiting on the other side.

These unanswered whys seem every bit as miraculous.

If the book’s contributors were rabbis, priests or ministers, these startling recoveries or departures might be placed in a theological subtext that attracts a believer-only readership.

This is not the case with Miracles. The physicians in this collection have been trained in and practice an exact science. Generally, personal beliefs about G-d are either completely omitted or biding time in the waiting room.

Yet the majority of these doctors do recognize benefits that lie beyond the scope of science: love, prayer, spirituality, friendship, hope, even Chinese herbal medicine.

While anything that furthers recovery is valuable, it can’t replace a physician’s acquired knowledge, skill and experience. Striking an ineffable balance between the two is key.

Topic categories include “Spectacular Serendipity,” “Impossible Cures,” “Breathtaking Resuscitations,” “Extraordinary Awakenings,” “Unimaginable Disasters,” “Mysterious Presence,” “Global Miracles,” “Miracles in Their Own Time.” “Paying it Forward,” “Difficult Decisions,” “Silver Linings” and “Back to the Beginning.”

They comprise the entire spectrum of the miraculous — encompassing every conceivable definition and dimension of the term.

Essayists in Miracles We Have Seen include a Nobel Peace Prize-winner, deans and department heads of top-flight university medical schools, and specialists at various stages in their careers.

Their forays into the unforeseen become yours.

“The word ‘miracle’ is often used in religious contexts,” Rotbart writes in the introduction, “and while faith and prayer certainly play an important role in many of our patients’ lives, as well as some of the vignettes in this compilation, this is not a book about religion.

“I will leave it to the reader to determine what, if any, role those factors play in the outcome of these stories.

“Rather, this is a book about optimism and inspiration, and the realization that what we don’t know or don’t understand isn’t necessarily cause for fear, and can even be reason for hope.”

All net author proceeds from Miracles We Have Seen will be donated to charities designated by the contributing physicians.

Andrea Jacobs may be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News



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IJN Senior Writer | [email protected]


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