Introduction 9
Through their struggles, these physicians illustrated much about power
and magic in medicine. Chiseled over the main hospital entrance at the
medical center where I work rise the biblical words ‘‘For of the most high
cometh healing.’’ In ancient Greece, healing came from, and was intri-
cately entwined with, the gods. As the Hippocratic Oath states, healing
is a gift from the gods. The healers here grappled with fears that they had
now lost their power, both magical and psychological. The anthropolo-
gist Bronislaw Malinowski described how magic supplies confidence in
facing uncertain and dangerous situations (10). Parsons elaborated on this
notion, describing in modern medicine an ‘‘optimistic bias’’ that fosters
beliefs that interventions and procedures will succeed. The profession
‘‘ritualizes’’ optimism (4), but treatments can fail, leading to conflicts
between hopes and realities. Broad historical contexts shape scientific
thinking (10), but how do microsocial and psychological contexts—the
hourly encounters of doctors and patients—mold views and approaches to
science, pseudoscience, and magic? Do ill doctors change how they view
and approach scientific data, and if so, how?
These men and women wrestled, too, with tensions between science
and faith. Controversies over evolution versus intelligent design rage,
among the most intense of our time. Of the physicians here, some be-
came religious; others mixed and matched various beliefs about spiri-
tuality or, in part because they were scientists, couldn’t bring themselves
to believe, though they longed to.
They elucidated, too, a closed world, and the workings of a profes-
sion and institutions more broadly. In ever-evolving and, arguably, ever-
expanding ways, large institutions shape our daily lives. For these doc-
tors, scientific dictates, institutional pressures, and personal needs and
desires now clashed. These men and women faced difficult trade-offs.
Aspects of their roles competed with, or reinforced, each other.
As a result, these physicians did not always practice what they preached,
or seek the best care. What previously helped them as doctors (e.g., beliefs
about their own invulnerability to disease) could now impede them. Fre-
quently, they pursued VIP treatment—which celebrity lay patients do as
well. Yet no prior studies have been done of how VIPs themselves look at
the treatment they receive.
These doctors’ experiences shed light, too, on several recent theories
about improving health. Health behaviors—from dieting and smoking
cessation to taking medications for high cholesterol—may be shaped by an