Warm Thanks on Long Nights

The winter solstice evokes feelings more primordial than the voguish Seasonal Affective Disorder.

In the third century, the Roman Emperor Aurelian institutionalized all that with the feast of the "Invincible Sun," on December 25.

A century later the Christian Church adopted the Aurelian holiday of the solstice to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The Eastern Church preferred January 6, which later became the feast of the Epiphany. That spread the rites of thanksgiving and celebration from December 25 (the homage of the shepherds) to January 6 (the homage of the magi).

Our first Thanksgiving, in November 1621, lasted three days. The Puritans prayed and feasted to memorialize their first winter at Plymouth, when more than half their number died of poor nutrition and inadequate housing. Members of the Berkeley plantation of Virginia had already set aside December 4, 1619, for a day of prayer, in gratitude for their survival.

Chanukah, in the wintry Hebrew month of Kislev, falling sometime in December, marks the re-consecration of the "invincible" Temple of Jerusalem after its recapture from the Syrian Greeks c.165 BC. The Talmud recorded that a day's supply of pure olive oil burned for eight days during the siege, until fresh jars of clean oil could be brought into the temple. Thus, the homage is celebrated with candles lit each of eight long nights of winter.

How better to transcend our fears than to celebrate the phenomena and the individuals that have softened our fears? When better than on the shortest days and the longest nights to pay our respects to those who help us survive the threats to our well-being?

We thank the doctors who:

• Volunteer in our SPIRIT and Adopt-a-School programs;
  
  
• Contribute to our CSERF for medical student scholarships;
  
  
• Talk with government decision-makers about medical values and concerns;
  
  
• Try to improve public access to optimal medical services;
  
  
• Offer their best ideas in medical society, specialty society and medical group meetings and publications;
  
  
• Offer their opinions on health-related social policy to the public media; and
  
  
• Assume the burdens of leadership in their professional organizations.
  
  

We also thank the media that treat physicians with fair and respectful attention, and the medical practice groups and political decision-makers that do the same.

We single out for thanks:

• "Trey" Washburn for his firm but gentle leadership of a dedicated, hard-working board that must decide what to do about issues ranging from esthetic to economic.
  
  
• Bill Sandberg and Chris Stincelli for their exceptional work in merging the Yolo and Sacramento-El Dorado medical societies into the new Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society. Bill's steadfast advocacy for each of our members and Chris's invaluable grasp of our medical society's history have made them an "invincible sun."
  
  
• All of the medical society staff who serve doctors and the public with incredible patience, sincere courtesy and trustworthy efficiency.
  
  

As we share this timeless tradition of giving thanks during the winter solstice, we wonder whether physicians are becoming more like our helpless pagan forbearers-cursing the darkness rather than lighting the lamps. Are we becoming more like farmers-loving the fields we tend but balefully bemoaning the weather, our costs and our income?

Decision-makers-in government at all its levels, in medical societies at all their levels, in health care management, or in academe-must choose among competing priorities and conflicting principles and interests. They must acknowledge the past, know the present and foresee the future. We know most about present medicine, less about past medicine, and almost nothing about future medicine. But individually and organizationally, we owe decision-makers whatever we know that relates to the hard choices they must make, the hardest being those in which equally virtuous principles conflict.

Our advice is best when it comes from what we believe our patients need, when we place patient interests and needs above our own.

To warm and brighten our longest nights, let us light the lamps that illuminate the needs and interests of our patients.

Ed_Rudin@macnexus.org