So I remember both medicine, because I frequently sick, particularly with asthma for which there was no proper treatment then, and in religion I had a strong sense of there being a patriarchy.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.
Eastern medicine is not about curing your sickness. It's about keeping you well.
I no longer practice medicine, but I can say that, for me, medicine was easier - and certainly less emotionally turbulent - than writing.
It is a very brave choice to go against traditional medicine and embrace the alternative route. It's easier to try the traditional route and then, if it fails, go to the alternatives, but often it can be too late.
Medicine, which I wouldn't be without, has also been a force for... less good. For example, if you look at our mishandling of the immune system, using antibiotics in children and avoiding infection, we've certainly increased the risk of asthma.
When I talked to my medical friends about the strange silence on this subject in American medical magazines and textbooks, I gained the impression that here was a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor.
Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements; sickness is the discord of the elements infused into the living body.
Medicine has always been my calling.
Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.
My grandmother studied medicine in the Forties, which was very rare in Egypt, and my mother was a university professor, so my idea of religion wasn't about a woman not working or having to dress in a certain way; it was more to do with the faith.