By Brooke Bunch

A man with a pink shirt and positive outlook on life and death took the podium at Irvine Hall Saturday afternoon, the site of the keynote lecture and lunch for OU-COM’s annual CME Conference and All Class Reunion. Bernie Siegel, M.D., was the focus of the luncheon, and he spoke of the importance of faith, love and laughter in everyday life.

The conference and alumni reunion brought back dozens of OU-COM alumni and their families to the Athens campus for a weekend of continuing medical education seminars and social events for the third consecutive year.

Siegel spoke on “The Psychology of Illness and the Art of Healing” at Saturday’s presentation.

“Don’t let the kid in you die,” he told an audience of D.O.s and their family members, students, faculty and staff. “Don’t forget the love and the laughter.”

Siegel embraces a philosophy that love, hope and respect prolong lives more consistently than medical science. His books, “Love, Medicine and Miracles” published in 1986, “Peace, Love and Healing” in 1989 and “How to Live Between Office Visits” in 1993, have broken new ground in the field of healing.

Siegel maintains that as students, medical professionals are not exposed to the basics of practicing medicine in a personal manner. 

“What we get is information but not an education,” he told the crowd. “What we are not taught is how to deal with people as well as ourselves.”

Preaching from personal experience as a patient himself, Siegel stressed the importance of connecting with and developing personal relationships with patients.

“Help people heal their lives, and then they can be cured,” he said.

Siegel also spoke on accepting mortality and dealing with loss. He encouraged the D.O.s to attend their patient’s funerals, accepting death — not fearing it.

“Be comfortable with death,” he said. “You can’t control it. If you’re surrounded by support and love, dying isn’t that hard.”

Siegel presented a series of slides to the audience, depicting various drawings made by former patients. Siegel claims much can be told from a simple drawing, adding a positive outlook will most definitely mean a better reaction to surgery.

“Who knows what can happen if you get up everyday loving life,” he said.

Lastly, Siegel stressed the importance of making yourself happy. He urged audience members to do what they love, adding happiness will follow naturally.

“You only have one life,” he said. “Be who you want to be and be where you want to be.”

In 1978 Siegel founded Exceptional Cancer Patients (ECaP), an individual and group therapy based on “carefrontation,” a loving, safe, therapeutic confrontation enabling everyone to understand his or her healing potential. He has written extensively about the mind-body connection in medicine, encouraging patients to take an active role in the healing process.

Siegel attended Colgate University and Cornell University Medical College, where he graduated with honors. His surgical training took place at Yale New Haven Hospital and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He practiced general and pediatric surgery until retiring in 1989.

On Friday evening Siegel spoke at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium to an Athens community audience.

Sponsored by the Office of Alumni Affairs, the Society of Alumni and Friends, the Area Health Education Center and the Center of Excellence for Multicultural Medicine, the three-day event featured more than 25 seminars on a range of subjects, from cardiovascular medicine to dermatology to cancer.