Mesmer and the Triad of Body, Mind and Spirit

Allow me, reader, a reflection before starting a consultation with my patient. Over the years, I have performed many surgeries. Procedures that require experience, given their complexity and postoperative recovery. I have accompanied patients throughout their rehabilitation, which at times has extended due to everyone’s age and/or physiology. There have also been times when I’ve sensed the emergence of my patient’s mental state. Fears, anxieties and preoperative depression all impact the patient’s eventual recovery to some degree. Today, it’s no secret the importance we physicians place on the physical body, the mind and the spirit. A couple of centuries ago, this triad was merely a shadow of its full potential.