How doctors understand miracles

Evelyn’s story echoes a more mystical one from the book Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Remen. In this story a patient at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York has exhausted all the medicines known to treat his cancer. Scans show tumors all over his body, even penetrating his bones. Then, miraculously, his cancer just goes away — a mysterious phenomenon some call “spontaneous remission.”

We know very little about spontaneous remission except that it’s extremely rare. Most doctors refrain from mentioning it to avoid giving false hope to patients. But the allure is undeniable.

Several oncologists told me that they’d heard of the phenomenon, but never seen it themselves. University of Pennsylvania oncologist Ursina Teitelbaum had a completely different view. “A miracle for me is a peaceful death not in a hospital with your family and loved ones around,” she told me. “It’s sad that this is still too often a miracle.”