Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Abraham Verghese.Photo:Oprah’s Super Soul Podcast
Oprah’s Super Soul Podcast
Oprah Winfreyis exploring the difference between curing and healing in a new six-part series for herSuper Soulpodcast.
In the series, which premieres June 21, the media mogul, 68, sits down with bestselling author Dr. Abraham Verghese about his novelThe Covenant of Water, which is the latest addition to herbook club.
The Covenant of Wateris a South Indian novel that follows three generations of a family from 1900 to 1977 seeking answers to several mysteries, touching on themes of medical ingenuity and more.
Winfrey calls Verghese — a physician and professor of the theory and practice of medicine at Stanford Medical School — “a doctor who deeply cares about his patients. They’re real people to him, not just illnesses that need to be fixed.
“And he understands that even when a disease cannot be cured, the person with the disease can be healed,” Winfrey tells PEOPLE. “I think that is just the most powerful thing in the world.”
Verghese, who works in the field of infectious diseases, tells PEOPLE that he came to understand and preach this concept years ago while doing home visits for patients living with HIV.
Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Abraham Verghese on the Super Soul podcast.Oprah’s Super Soul Podcast
Verghese, 68, believes that for hospitalized patients, sometimes modern technology — although advanced and vital in healthcare — can present a “cold, unhealing front” when what can be beneficial for a patient is empathy and human connection.
“Sometimes what the patient needs is some sense of a human being saying, ‘I care, I’m so sorry, and I’ll be with you on this journey,’ ” he says.
The author adds that there’s tremendous value in medical personnel expressing care and being present with a patient on their recovery journey.
“The analogy I shared with Oprah, and I often tell my students is: If you go home and find that your apartment door is open, even though you locked it, and the door is in splinters and everything you value is gone, you will be suffering two kinds of losses,” Verghese explains. “One will be a physical loss of all these valuable things to you. But secondly, there will be a sort of spiritual violation of your soul that’s just taken place because someone entered your sacred space and disturbed your sanctity.”
“I think modern medicine has gotten very good about curing when it can, but I think we’ve kind of leapfrogged over the healing part,” he adds.
Winfrey saysThe Covenant of Waterpodcast discussion, along with the book that inspired it, opens listeners to “a greater perception of life.”
“This concept appeals to doctors and non-doctors. But also, so many people are yearning for having that kind of medical care, having that kind of doctor in your life that comes from first being seen and touched,” she says. “That’s its own validation.”
Winfrey adds, “This idea of seeing the patient as a real person and not just as a bunch of stats or information on a computer screen, and validating them in their illness, is what everybody’s looking for. Everybody’s looking for a doctor like that.”
Oprah Winfrey’s six-partSuper SoulCovenant of Waterpodcast series with Dr. Abraham Verghese premieres June 21 onYouTube,Apple,Spotifyand more with new episodes every Wednesday through July 26.
source: people.com
