Stress and Heart Disease: Par... Video Transcript

Webcast Transcript

This is one of the most potentially intriguing and unknowable areas, but in a couple of good studies, patients do better.

LISA CLARK: And, to reiterate, the patients didn't know they were being prayed for.

NATE LEBOWITZ, MD: That's right. It seems to have been completely blinded. The patients didn't know, and yet they clearly did do better.

LISA CLARK: That is an intriguing notion. How does that make you feel as a physician, to know that there are things that can't be measured, can't be tested?

NATE LEBOWITZ, MD: I think, if I was purely a scientist, I would be incredibly uncomfortable with that. But I chose to go into a mix of science and humanities called medicine, and you have to be comfortable, to some degree, with uncertainty. Because you just don't know. You have to take your best shot, and combine science with art, with a bedside manner, and try to combine the best thing that will really help the patient.

So there's clearly uncertainty, and you have to be comfortable with it to some degree. It's not easy. But, clearly, there are a million things we don't know, and you have to do your best.

LISA CLARK: I can't thank you enough for being with us here tonight, Nate Lebowitz and Sam Benjamin. Thank you both so much for your input. And also, thanks to you for joining us for this webcast. I'm Lisa Clark.

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