Conventional Medicine Vs Alternative Medicine: Our Family Experience

Our family disagrees with how Mom should be treated for multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.

My dad is a general surgeon. But interestingly he has been someone who has tended to discourage the use of chemotherapy. In his life he seems to magnify the negative experiences all the while magnifying anectodal evidence of alternative therapy. In fact he shares one experience where he had a patient with stage 4 melanoma. Usually someone with this doesn’t live for more than a year. The patient was tired of doing chemotherapy and was looking for an alternative. My Dad provided an interesting prescription. Eliminate all animal products from your diet. Eat a plant-based diet and drink freshly made vegetable juice every 3 hours while awake. Twenty years later the patient continues to live.

Now that Mom has cancer, he’d like her to do the same. Mom had gone through inductive chemotherapy in preparation for what the doctors called an autologous stem cell transplant. The treatment would look like non-harsh medicines for 4 months to eliminate as much of the cancer as possible. Afterwards, doctors would harvest the stem cells in her body before obliterating the cancer and bone marrow with a heavy dose of chemotherapy. Then they would re-introduce harvested stem cells in order to rebuild her bone marrow. It would be akin to dropping an atomic bomb on the bone marrow. The enemy would be wiped out. But the rebuilding process would take many months.

Bad Side Effects and Mayo Clinic

Dad consulted on a patient who happened to have multiple myeloma. Naturally, he asked him about his course. He had gone through conventional therapies only to develop myelodysplastic syndrome, a condition of permanent bone marrow failure. Now my dad usually sleeps like a rock. But that night he couldn’t go to bed. He couldn’t get the memory of that patient out of his mind. So he pleaded with Mom to forego the intensive chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant. Mom now headed back to Houston, waffling about whether or not to pursue the stem cell transplant.

Learning about this I decided to spend some time reading more about stem cell transplant. I called up someone I knew from medical school, John Shin. He was a faithful Seventh-day Adventist Christian and also a first-year oncology fellow at the Mayo Clinic. I asked him about our situation and his thoughts. What did he think about the relationship of faith, natural remedies and conventional medicine?

John counted it a blessing to be on a myeloma rotation at the time of my call. He went on to say that to be dogmatic was to be dangerous. Doing conventional medicine isn’t a denial of faith. Neither does conventional medicine need to be practiced to the exclusion of natural remedies. In general, transplanting the patient’s own stem cells means that one does not have to deal with transplant rejection which is typical of most other types of transplants. In oncology, it’s a success when someone is able to gain a few months with a new chemotherapy regimen. With autologous stem cell transplant, you’re adding years, not just months with relatively low toxicities and side effects. He went on to say that if it was his own mother, he would unequivocally recommend an autologous stem cell transplant.

Calling Mark Finley

I shared the conversation with Mom who almost seemed convinced. There was one question that lingered, however. She asked over the phone: What about Mark Finley? I heard he has multiple myeloma. He seems to be doing well. What is he doing? Can you contact him, Son? Can you call Mark Finley and ask him?

My Mom was looking to cancel all other medical appointments for the rest of the week so I had a deadline.

Mark Finley is an evangelist who has impacted hundreds of thousands over the course of his lifetime. I’d met him before but he had no idea who I was. How was I going to get a hold of the famed Mark Finley and talk to him personally?

Well serendipitously, one of my friends, *Jamie, had actually just worked with Mark Finley. In fact, his family came close to moving to Virginia to become a part of his ministry but it didn’t work out. I called him up and told him the situation of my Mom. He responded, Well, I’ll give you his number, just don’t tell him I gave it to you.

The following day I called the number. It rang once. Then I heard the voice on the other end, Hello?

I instantly recognized the voice. I had been listening to Mark Finley since I was in high school. Now I was talking to him over the phone and feeling nervous. I barely sputtered out the words: Pastor Mark Finley, I have a personal matter to discuss with you. Mom has multiple myeloma and I wanted to get your thoughts on the matter. He told me that he was supposed to be on a conference call in that moment and that I should call back around noon.

We talked later on in the day and I explained in more detail Mom’s situation. He told me that would gladly share his experience.

In 2013, Mark Finely was driving when he stopped at a traffic light. He reached over to pick up a book off the floor and felt a pain in his side. X-rays would later reveal a fracture of his ribs. This didn’t occur just once but twice. At the doctor’s office he was told this wasn’t normal and blood work was ordered which came back abnormal. Doctor’s would later tell him that he had “multiple myeloma” and was sent to the oncologist. He and his wife prayed about the situation and decided that they would attack the problem with prayer, natural remedies and the science God gifted to these physicians. He later told the specialist that he was not opposed to chemotherapy but he wanted the doctors to be absolutely sure this is what he had and that the treatment would be effective. The onconlogist asked him to come back for follow up so he could study his case further. At follow up he told him this. If there were 10 oncologists dealing with your case, 5 would say we don’t know what to do. Two would say treat immediately and three would say watch and wait. Finely told them that wasn’t good enough and instead opted to be monitored. He was later told that he had what’s called “smoldering myeloma” – a slow-growing type of cancer.

Since that time Pastor Finley did go to Uchee Pines to get fever baths. His diet and exercise is impeccable, and God continues to bless him with more years of life.

I called Mom later that day and shared with her my story of how I was able to get a hold of Pastor Finley. We discussed how each case of multiple myeloma is different. Mark Finely obviously had a slow growing kind where the benefits of treatment were uncertain. The kind that Mom had was not a slow growing kind. And we know that stem cell transplant in her case can add years to her life. She told me she was thankful and could tell that I loved her.

Finding Balance

As a Christian doctor, I appreciate the approach of Mark Finley to medical care. We need to balance faith, a lifestyle approach and conventional medicine.

On one hand there are those who lean on a more naturalistic approach and miss out on the best of what conventional medicines has to offer. They fail see how modern medicine has improved both the quality of life and years of life. As a result, they miss out on its benefits and hasten an early death.

Then on the other side there are those who too heavily lean on conventional medicine failing to see how everyday choices and actions affect our health. Conventional medicine is not a silver bullet and in fact has its share of weaknesses – including the cost of medicine proportional to its benefit, the corrupting influence of profit, or it’s inability to help patients make lifestyle changes to help with chronic diseases over a pharmacologic approach alone.

As a Christian doctor, I need to have a balanced approach like Mark Finley and obtain the best of both worlds using lifestyle approaches and conventional medicine guided by faith under the Master Physician.

*Name has been changed.