"Pranic Healing" for healthcare providers

zenman · Oct 9, 2007

If I'm ever in the ER with a stoke and a BP of 260/130 I hope my healthcare provider is using drugs to dilate my vessels or dissolve the clot, not using pranic healing. Maybe I'm just to close minded. What you all think?

Dr. W.F. Peate tells about his first experience with a native American medicine man. Peate is trying to lower this old comatose Indian's bp while his attending is hollering, "Get his blood pressure down now, before he has a stroke!"

Dr. Peate struggles to get another IV line in the rolling veins when this medicine man comes in and ask him to move over. Dr. Peate pleads with the nurses for help with the intruder and he finally gets the line in and starts meds as the medicine man begins chanting. The guys bp falls and Dr. Peate is proud of himself and modern medicine...until he looks down at the catheterized vein and realizes no drug had gone in.

Indy, LPN, LVN · Oct 9, 2007

This thread was of great interest to me, until I realized the title did not actually say "panic healing."

Katnip, RN · Oct 9, 2007

Dr. W.F. Peate tells about his first experience with a native American medicine man. Peate is trying to lower this old comatose Indian's bp while his attending is hollering, "Get his blood pressure down now, before he has a stroke!"
Dr. Peate struggles to get another IV line in the rolling veins when this medicine man comes in and ask him to move over. Dr. Peate pleads with the nurses for help with the intruder and he finally gets the line in and starts meds as the medicine man begins chanting. The guys bp falls and Dr. Peate is proud of himself and modern medicine...until he looks down at the catheterized vein and realizes no drug had gone in.

My first reaction to this is the patient's belief in his own traditions is so much stronger than that of modern medicine that his bp came down with the medicine man's tx. The mind is an extremely powerful tool when it comes to healing.

Jo Dirt · Oct 9, 2007

I think somebody is trying to find a way to make extra money.

Blee O'Myacin, BSN, RN · Oct 9, 2007

Let me see if I can get this straight: If I administer the "energy-everywhere" laxative used for an energy field prep prior to a pranoscopy, it is possible to have an uncontrolled energy ooze or a "code-chi"?

So does that mean we are going to have a new box to check off on the code cart check list for aligned chakras? Please be sure to fill in the appropriate number on the plastic lock for said chakras, along with expiration date. If the lock needs to be broken, central supply will realign the chakras between 0830 and 1600, monday through friday only. If code-chi occurs on night shift, weekends, or national holiday, please swap out the chakras for a locked supply as a part of the chi cart exchange.

Gives new meaning to magnet hospitals too...

Blee

zenman · Oct 10, 2007

So does that mean we are going to have a new box to check off on the code cart check list for aligned chakras?
Blee

Sounds like you're confused about chakras, lol.

Candace Pert, Ph.D., the well known scientist who discovered the opiate receptor and who, along with her husband, Dr. Michael Ruff, discovered Peptide T, says that her work is "beginning to reveal the scientific underpinnings of the chakra system. From this point of view, the chakras are 'minibrains:' nodal points of electrical and chemical activity that receive, process, and distribute information to and from the rest of the bodymind. Physiologically, each chakra is the site of a neuronal plexus-a network of cells dense with neuropeptide transmitters. All are interdependently connected to each other, such that nourishing any one plexus enhances the effectiveness of the entire system. By the same token, trauma or neglect can manifest as a block at one or more nodal points, degrading the performance of all."

Keep those babies spinning!

Valanda · Oct 10, 2007

I had read this article and found the results to be very interesting. If someone is capable of actually sensing this pranic field, then they could win 1.1 million dollars for their unusual ability.

I think I will remain sceptical of prantic healing until someone does manage to claim the prize.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/279/13/1005

Practitioners of TT are generally reluctant to be tested by people who are not proponents. In 1996, the James Randi Educational Foundation offered $742000 to anyone who could demonstrate an ability to detect an HEF under conditions similar to those of our study. Although more than 40000 American practitioners claim to have such an ability, only 1 person attempted the demonstration. She failed, and the offer, now more than $1.1 million, has had no further volunteers despite extensive recruiting efforts.

november17, ASN, RN · Oct 10, 2007

Acupuncture works along the principles of energy lines too.

zenman · Oct 11, 2007

I had read this article and found the results to be very interesting. If someone is capable of actually sensing this pranic field, then they could win 1.1 million dollars for their unusual ability.
I think I will remain sceptical of prantic healing until someone does manage to claim the prize.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/279/13/1005
Practitioners of TT are generally reluctant to be tested by people who are not proponents. In 1996, the James Randi Educational Foundation offered $742000 to anyone who could demonstrate an ability to detect an HEF under conditions similar to those of our study. Although more than 40000 American practitioners claim to have such an ability, only 1 person attempted the demonstration. She failed, and the offer, now more than $1.1 million, has had no further volunteers despite extensive recruiting efforts.

I don't do TT but I certainly wouldn't keep posting that link as JAMA wishes they had never published that "study." It was one reason their editor was fired later. A "prestigious" journal would never publish a study by an adolescent who's mother was a member of a skeptic organization and particularly since the study had nothing whatsoever to do with TT.

Sensing or seeing energy is really not an "unusual" ability. You can be taught it in a few minutes. Then you can run the Randi hurdles and try for the $$$$.

DaFreak71 · Oct 11, 2007

I don't do TT but I certainly wouldn't keep posting that link as JAMA wishes they had never published that "study." It was one reason their editor was fired later. A "prestigious" journal would never publish a study by an adolescent who's mother was a member of a skeptic organization and particularly since the study had nothing whatsoever to do with TT.
Sensing or seeing energy is really not an "unusual" ability. You can be taught it in a few minutes. Then you can run the Randi hurdles and try for the $$$$.

BTW, George D. Lundberg, the former editor of JAMA was not fired for covering this issue. He was fired because of a study that concerned whether or not college students viewed oral sex as "having sex". The timing was bad because it coincided with the whole President Clinton issue because, if you'll remember, he claimed that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinski. In order to prevent a possible impeachment, he claimed that there's a difference between "sex" and "oral sex". So when he said "I never had sex with her", he meant he never had intercourse with her, but he did have oral sex with her. JAMA's long time editor George D. Lundberg was fired because of the coincidence of the Clinton trial. His firing had NOTHING to do with the TT article. As an aside, more than half of the 650 students believed that oral sex was not really sex. Also, there was a pretty huge outcry about Lundberg's firing, from doctors to other editors of medical publications. In fact, Lundberg wasn't exactly a TT advocate NOR was he a skeptic. Here is what he had to say about the study:

In an accompanying note, JAMA's editor, Dr. George Lundberg commented, "practitioners should disclose these results to patients, third-party payers should question whether they should pay for this procedure, and patients should save their money unless or until additional honest experimentation demonstrates an actual effect." Yet many top nursing school continue to teach and promote it." (emphasis mine).

I agree that the TT article should not have been published due to one reason ONLY: because the persons conducting the study were Linda Rosa, BSN (who is a skeptic of TT), Emily Rosa (her daughter who was skeptic of TT), and Larry Sarner (Emily's step-dad and Linda's husband who was also a skeptic). However, that is not the only study that has been done on this issue. In fact, another study was conducted in 1994 (several years after the Rosa's study was published in the JAMA). It was conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Below is the result of that study:

1994 Alabama Study:

The American Defense Department approved a $355,225 grant to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Burn Center to "quantify the effect of therapeutic touch (TT) on pain and infection in burn patients, and to develop a research - based protocol for practice." 3 The military have a major interest in any treatment that can be proven to help burn patients.

The researchers evaluated TT by comparing the results obtained by a test group of trained TT practitioners with a control group of nurses who were unfamiliar with TT but acted as if they were experienced therapists. Two reporters for the Skeptical Inquirer, Carla Selby and Bela Scheiber, commented "What's the difference between waving your hands over a patient's body hoping to heal him or her and pretending to wave your hands over a patient's body hoping to heal him or her...What if the mimic TT practitioner feels compassion for the burn victim and accidentally performs actual TT? How would that affect the results of the study?"

The researchers concluded that:

Nosocomial infections were more common (3 vs.1) in the patients receiving TT than among the control group. The patients "perception of pain" was decreased among the patients receiving TT according to "McGill pain rating scale". But when the "Visual Analogue Scale" was used to measure pain, "no statistically significant difference was found between groups." They found that anxiety was lower among the patients who received TT. 2

If you can locate it, I'd like to know of a link that suggests he was fired due to his willingness to publish the Rosa's TT study. I've searched and searched, but haven't found anything that states his firing was due to or partly due to the TT study.

As I see it, there are two camps:

1. Those that believe in it whole heartedly (but are not willing to allow their talents to be tested)

2. Those who are skeptical of it and attempt to test it by the scant few who are willing to allow themselves to be tested, but if the results come back that disprove the healing properties of TT, they will be accused of being skeptics in the first place.

Ok, maybe what we really need is a third camp. One that has no invested interest in the outcome (neither a believer or a skeptic) and then we'll see where the chips land.

Interesting debate 'eh?

EmmaG, RN · Oct 11, 2007

I personally hate the NANDA "energy field disturbance" dx.

oh. my. God.

I thought you were joking...

DaFreak71 · Oct 11, 2007

oh. my. God.
I thought you were joking...

The first time I heard it, I thought it was a joke too. Well it kind of is, in that it's absurd, but it's not because it is an actual NANDA dx.

Had an instructor in nursing school who told us that the first person who used this dx on their care plan would get a zero for their grade.