Book Publications

Healing From the Heart

By Mehmet C. Oz, MD

The following excerpt is taken from the prologue to Healing from the Heart, A Leading Heart Surgeon Combines Eastern and Western Traditions to Create the Medicine of the Future by Mehmet C. Oz, MD, now available in paperback from Plume/Penguin.

Cutting Edge

The heart is the main engine and timekeeper of human life–what the sun is to the earth, a source of life-giving warmth and a regulator of days and nights, the heart is to the body. It nourishes our tissues with blood and sets our rhythm with a pulse. It is the physical wellspring of life.

And, some say, the wellspring of the soul. The heart is regarded as the center of human emotions. From the heart come fear, courage, love, and hate. A heart can be light or heavy, aching or happy, crooked and pure. There are big hearts, open hearts, brave hearts, wild hearts, mighty hearts, bleeding hearts, and of course, broken hearts.

The recovery of patients who have had open-heart surgery is often hindered by their perception that they have been abandoned by their hearts, their source of life, leaving them feeling emotionally and physically vulnerable. Drugs and modern medical technology may help these patients physically intact and functioning, but often they remain psychologically bereft with grief and a sense of worthlessness.

For this reason I soon came to recognize that responsibility could not end with the last skin suture I sewed. At the completion of the operation, no matter how successful, as a healer I also had to show the patient the path to recovery—a task made easier with complementary medicine treatments, particularly those that engage the mind to relax and lower fear, anxiety, and tension. These therapies can enable patients to pursue healing on their own.

My patients' stories of struggles, setback, and triumphs hold meaning for us all. My patients proved this to me, setting me on my own journey toward a more encompassing view of medicine, one that never underestimates the mind's role in healing the heart.