Studies and Progress Notes (June 2011)

* * SPIRITUAL AWARENESS AND WHOLISTIC HEALING * *

The rise of personal spirituality and the fall of organized religious affiliations

People, especially among the younger generation, are leaving churches in large numbers. Many churches today have older generation members comprising the bulk of their congregations. Over the past two decades the percent of Americans listing themselves as having no religious affiliation rose from 7% to 17%.

Dossey, Larry. CAM, Religion, and Schrödinger’s One Mind Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing. 2011; 7(1) p. 1.
Putnam, Robert D. and Campbell, David E. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.

IJHC – WHR Observations
I find in my clinical practice of wholistic healing and in workshops I am teaching around the world that people are increasingly reporting they sense a personal connection to a higher power/ The Infinite Source/ God/ Goddess/ Christ consciousness and other such identifiers for their inner awarenesses of being one with the All.

* * FUTURE RESEARCH IN WHOLISTIC HEALING * *

The IJHC/WHR E-Zine features monthly suggestions for future research in healing.
READERS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT SUGGESTIONS FOR TOPICS TO STUDY
If your topic is chosen, you ill receive free access to the IJHC for a month, including the current issue and all back issues.

Personal validations of the healing power of personal spirituality in our lives

You can validate the power of the transcendent in your personal life - through your immediate responses to simple exercises. For instance, you can use spiritual affirmations to decrease the intensity of pain, stress reactions, fears, residues of old traumas and other negativity. To do this, you can start with non-spiritual affirmations and get a sense of the responses you achieve in reducing the intensity of negativity you are working on. Then add a spiritual component to your affirmation and see what differences you note in your responses.

I teach people to do this regularly with WHEE: Whole Health-Easily and Effectively. Here is a brief version:
1. Focus on an issue or feeling you would like to feel better about, noting how strong it feels on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 10 (he worst it could possibly feel).
2. Say to yourself: Even though I feel ___________ When I think about ___________
I still love and accept myself, wholly and completely
3. Note how your negativity decreases.
4. Repeat (1-3)
The above will give you a sense of how your negative issues can respond to an ordinary affirmation.

5. Repeat (1-3) again, this time adding, "And God (Spirit/ the Infinite Source/ My higher Self/ INSERT WHATEVER ABOUT THE TRANSCENDENT FEELS RIGHT TO YOU) loves and accepts me, wholly and completely and unconditionally
Note any differences when you add an affirmation focused on the transcendent, which will give you a sense of the additional benefits of healing that are possible through connecting with the transcendent.

More on WHEE at http://www.paintap.com

* * WHOLISTIC APPROACHES * *

Smile intensity in photographs predicts longevity

Emotions affect personalities and life outcomes by influencing how people think, behave, and interact with others. People with positive emotions are happier and have more stable personalities, more stable marriages, and better cognitive and interpersonal skills than those with negative emotions, throughout the life span.

Facial expressions are a barometer of the emotions, and like emotions, they vary in form and intensity. Studies by Ekman, Friesen, and their colleagues have shown that it is possible to identify different emotional states from facial expressions.

Previous studies have found that positive emotions, as inferred from smile intensity in childhood photos and college yearbook photos, are correlated with marriage stability and satisfaction. The present study is the first to link smile intensity to a biological outcome: longevity.

Little information (other than smile intensity) was available regarding the individuals in the previously mentioned photo studies. In the current study, however, we were able to include many additional factors known to influence longevity because of the group we elected to evaluate. We focused on Major League Baseball (MLB) players because detailed statistics are available for each player (dating back prior to 1900), and because MLB players represent a homogeneous occupational group. We (and other researchers) have used this database to examine numerous factors related to longevity.

Ernest L. Abel and Michael L. Kruger at Wayne State University have found that the larger your smile, the longer you may live. Yes, that’s right; “smile intensity” seems to have a statistically significant effect on a person’s longevity.

In their research, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, the professors conducted an amusing case study that used a sampling of 230 photographs of baseball players culled from the now-defunct Sporting News Baseball Register. The professional ball players were chosen as a representative sample because detailed life statistics (such as birth, death, education, marital status, etc.) were available for each, leading to a more conclusive study.

The players’ headshots, taken in the lead-up to the 1952 season, were analyzed by the researchers and their assistants and given flat distinctions of either “no smile,” “partial smile” or “full (Duchenne) smile.” After some Web sleuthing, the researchers compiled the life data for the baseball players and controlled for body mass index, career length, marital status, college attendance and other longevity factors.

The results? Even a partial smile added years to a player’s lifespan.

On average, the players with no smile lived for 72.9 years, a full two years less than those who exhibited partial smiles. Those with the largest grins reaped an even longer lifespan: Players with full smiles lived to 79.9 years, almost two years longer than the typical life expectancy for an American. That’s an overall difference of seven years of life between those players that chose not to smile and those who gave wholehearted grins.

The researchers also ran the same study again and rated each of the players headshots based on a three-point scale of attractiveness. Unlike a player’s smile, there was no significant correlation between a player’s perceived attractiveness and their longevity.
But smiles, it seems, can be telling about our characteristics.

“Individuals whose underlying emotional disposition is reflected in voluntary or involuntary Duchenne smiles may be basically happier than those with less intense smiles and hence maybe more predisposed to benefit from the effects of positive emotionality,” concluded the researchers.

Before you smirk and explain that there must be some other factor involved, it’s worth mentioning that this study is not an anomaly. The researchers cited numerous other studies displaying the powerful effects of relatively simple facial expressions and emotional conditions like involuntary happiness or sadness.

Last year, widely published research by Matthew J. Hertenstein found that smile intensity in yearbook photographs could predict relatively accurately whether or not a person would later go through a divorce. In 2005, a study found that participants could predict the outcome of 70 percent of Senate congressional elections with just a split-second judgment of the facial appearance of the candidates. Related studies with controlled circumstances have found that facial appearance (and smiles or lack thereof) can also predict sexual orientation and socioeconomic status.

Much of the evidence, it appears, has been written all over our faces.

Sources: Abel, Ernest L. and Kruger, Michael L. Smile intensity in photographs predicts longevity Psychological Science April 2010 21, 4: 542-544. http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/02/26/0956797610363775.extract
http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/smile-to-live-longer-10401

IJHC – WHR Observations
How lovely to see that smiling is a self-healing intervention! I had always assumed it was only a help to those who received the smile.

Gut study divides people into three types

Bacterial populations fall into three distinct classes that could help to personalize medicine.
Nicola Jones

You have one of three different populations of microbes in your gut.
Just as there are a few major blood types that divide up the world, so too, a study has found, there are just three types of gut-microbe populations. The result could help to pinpoint the causes of obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, and to personalize medicine.

"This is important. Say you want to compare ill people and healthy people; you better match them properly [by gut type]," Dusko Ehrlich told Nature at a human microbiome conference in Vancouver, Canada. Ehrlich, a senior researcher on the paper published in Nature today1, is director of the Microbial Genetics Research Unit at the National Institute for Agricultural Research in Jouy-en-Josas, France, and part of a European consortium aiming to unpick links between gut microbes and disease.

The finding of just three types of gut-microbe population was an unexpected result that fell out of the team's early analysis. The types aren't related to age, gender, nationality or diet. "What causes it? We don't know," says Ehrlich.

One possible explanation, which the team is testing, is that a person's gut-microbe make-up is determined by his or her blood type. Alternatively, it might be determined by metabolism: there are three major chemical pathways by which people get rid of excess hydrogen gas created during food fermentation in the colon, and the gut type might be linked to those. Or, perhaps the first microbes a baby is exposed to as his or her immune system is developing determines the type.

A person's gut type might help to determine whether people can eat all they like and stay slim, whether they will experience more gut pain than others when sick and how well they can metabolize a certain drug.

It's unclear whether a person's gut type might change over time, either naturally or in response to something such as a steady diet of probiotic yoghurt.

Little helpers

Researchers have only recently begun to appreciate the importance of the bacterial cells that grow on and in our bodies, outnumbering our own cells by about ten to one. In rodents, gut microbes are known to influence weight and immunity against disease. In the United States, the Human Microbiome Project is aiming to catalogue all the microbes living in our nose, mouth, skin, gut, and urinary and genital tracts; in Europe, the Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract (MetaHIT) Consortium, the group to which Erlich belongs, is focusing on the gut.

For this paper, the team used genetic screening to identify the microbes present in faecal samples from 22 Europeans enrolled in other gut-microbe studies, and compared the results with samples from 17 people in the United States and Japan. When they looked to see how similar the samples were, the researchers found that they clustered neatly into three groups. "We were very surprised," says Peer Bork of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, also a senior author on the paper. Although the number of samples in this paper is small, Bork says that his team now has results from more than 400 samples and that the clustering is still evident.

"I was surprised too. I thought it would be much more chaotic," says Brett Finlay, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Fat or thin

The team has named the clusters after the dominant genus: Bacteroides, Prevotella and Ruminococcus. Bacteroides are known to be good at breaking down carbohydrates, so it is possible that people of this type might, for example, struggle more with obesity, says Bork. Prevotella tend to degrade slimy mucus in the gut, which could conceivably increase gut pain. And some Ruminococcus help cells to absorb sugars, which might contribute to weight gain.

Bork cautions, however, that each person carries a complex mix of perhaps a few thousand bacterial species, and too little is known to make sweeping generalizations about the implications of the different gut types. The team has, however, found hints that one particular disease — Bork won't yet say which one — is found only in people of one microbial gut type.

The team also has a host of as-yet-unpublished results that link specific gut-bacteria species to individual characteristics. "If I have a stool sample I can tell how old you are," says Bork. "That seems useless because you already know how old you are, but it's proof of principle that it could maybe be used for all sorts of other things." Ehrlich says that his team can diagnose obesity with an accuracy of 80-85% from half a dozen bacterial species.

"The real question is: what is the gene set we need in our guts to be healthy?" says Finlay. That has yet to be answered.

Source: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/news.2011.249.html
Published online 20 April 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.249

IJHC – WHR Observations
The good news is that in the unfolding of this research we may learn how to help people better when they have various problems such as overeating. A caution here, though, lest we end up over-focusing on this one factor (as conventional medicine tends to do), when overeating has many factors contributing to it. Wholistic approaches, focusing on whole people rather than just on heir physical conditions, holds more promise of helping people deal with their issues of emotions, mind, relationships and spirit as well as with their physical problems.

* * COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES * *

Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources.
Summary by Helen Y. Weng, M.S.; Graduate Student

Fredrickson and colleagues tested to see if loving-kindness meditation (LKM) would increase positive emotions, and in turn, increase personal resources, resulting in increased life satisfaction as well as decreased depression. Participants who worked at a large software company were randomized to a 7-week LKM course (n = 67) or waitlist control group (n = 72). The lovingkindness course consisted of 6 weekly hour-long instruction periods conducted during the work day, as well as practicing at home for 15-22 minutes with a guided meditation CD at least 5 days a week.

Before and after the course, participants self-reported their levels of personal resources (such as mindfulness, purpose in life, positive relations with others, and illness symptoms), as well as their satisfaction in life and depressive symptoms. During the 7-week course, participants reported their levels of positive (e.g. awe, contentment, joy) and negative (e.g. anger, contempt, sadness) emotions daily. They also reported on daily life events and rated the emotions they experienced.

Practicing LKM was found to increase positive emotions over the course of the study compared to the control group. Furthermore, across all participants, the more time they spent in meditative activity, the more positive emotions were experienced. For people who practiced LKM, effects built over time, so that by the end of the study, one hour of meditation resulted in greater positive emotions compared to one hour of meditation practiced at the beginning of the study (that is, the effect of meditation on positive emotions had increased three-fold over 7 weeks). People also reported emotions experienced during daily life events, and time spent meditating predicted how much positive emotions were experienced, particularly during social interactions. These increases in positive emotions predicted self-reported increases in cognitive, psychological, social, and physical resources.

These increases in personal resources seemed to impact how a person perceives his or her own life: they were associated with increases in reported life satisfaction. Increases in positive emotions and personal resources were also directly associated with decreases in depressive symptoms. However, LKM practice did not alter people's reported negative emotions. This study suggests that LKM is an effective way to increase experienced positive emotions in one's life, which then has the potential to increase one's personal resources and overall life satisfaction. In addition, these effects may be enhanced by regular practice.

Source: Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. J. Personality and Social Psychology, 1045- 1062. For .pdf copy of article click here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2735381/?tool=pubmed

IJHC – WHR Observations
The good news is that we now have research confirmation that practicing meditation with the intent to enhance our lovingkindness is successful. The bad news is that many people need research to confirm this – which is a sign that they do not trust their personal experiences or observations.

See lovingkindness meditation in this issue of our eZine.

Tai Chi Boosts Efficacy of Antidepressant Therapy in Older Adults
  

Adding an abbreviated version of Tai Chi to antidepressant therapy with escitalopram improved resilience, quality of life, and cognitive function in adults with major depression 60 years and older, according to new research presented at the New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (NCDEU) 50th Anniversary Meeting.

This study was funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Dr. Lavretsky and Dr. Nelson have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Source: New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (NCDEU) 50th Anniversary Meeting: Abstract 5, Session II. Presented June 16, 2010.
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/723915

IJHC – WHR Observations
T'ai Chi is a gentle form of exercise, very suitable for older people. These findings further confirm reports from numerous other studies showing that exercise decreases depression.

More CAM reviews at
http://www.library.nhs.uk/CAM/Page.aspx?pagename=NEWS
www.naturalhealthvillage.com
www.mdlinx.com/FamilyMDLinx
www.ucalgary.ca/~camig/litsearch.html
AMSA website
www.amsa.org/humed/camresources/camnews.cfm

* * TECHNOLOGY * *

Body-Mass Index (BMI) as a measure of health

Your weight relative to your height gives you a measure that can identify whether your weight might be stressing your heart, muscles, immune system and other aspects of your life. This has been standardized as the Body-Mass Index (BMI). Here are websites where you can quickly calculate your BMI to see how you stand.
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/tools/bmi_calculator/bmi.shtml

IJHC – WHR Observations
Isn't technology wonderful?! What will we do if we reach peak oil or other tipping points that deny us the wonderful tools of the internet? Stock up on pencils and paper, and get a basic math book that will refresh your memory on how to calculate these things by hand.

Decoding brainwaves lets scientists read minds

While currently in the realm of sci-fi fantasy, the ability to read people’s minds has taken a step closer to reality thanks to neuroscientists at the University of Glasgow.

Researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology have been able to identify the type of information contained within certain brainwaves related to vision.

Brainwaves – the patterns of electrical activity created in the brain when it is engaged in different activities – can easily be measured using electroencephalography (EEG).

However, knowing exactly what information is encoded within them, and how that encoding takes place, is a mystery.

Professor Philippe Schyns, Director of the Institute of Neurosciences & Psychology and the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, who led the pioneering study, said: “It’s a bit like unlocking a scrambled television channel. Before, we could detect the signal but couldn’t watch the content; now we can.

“How the brain encodes the visual information that enables us to recognise faces and scenes has long been a mystery. While we are able to detect EEG activity in certain areas of the brain when particular tasks are performed, we’ve not known what information is being carried in those brainwaves.

“What we have done is to find a way of decoding brainwaves to identify the messages within.”

In order to decode some of these brainwaves, the scientists at Glasgow recruited six volunteers and presented them with images of people’s faces, displaying different emotions such as happiness, fear and surprise.

On different experimental trials, parts of the images were randomly covered so that for example, only the eyes or mouth were visible. The volunteers were then asked to identify the emotion being displayed.

While engaged in this exercise the participants’ brainwaves were measured using EEG which allowed the researchers to identify which parts of the brain were active when looking at different parts of the face.

Brainwaves vary widely in frequency, amplitude and phase. In this study, the researchers found that ‘beta’ waves which have a cycle of 12Hz carried information about the eyes, while ‘theta’ waves at 4Hz encoded information about the mouth.

The researchers also found information could be primarily encoded depending on the phase – or timing of the brainwave – and less so by its amplitude – or strength.

Prof Schyns added: “By using multiple frequencies to encode two different parts of the face – a process called multiplexing – the brain can code more signals at the same time. It is a bit like radiowaves coding different radio stations at different frequency bands. Likewise, the brain tunes in different waves to code different visual features. This work has huge potential in the development of brain-computer interfaces.”

The research ties in with an initiative unique to Glasgow, developed by Professor Philippe Schyns, Professor Joachim Gross and Dr Gregor Thut at the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (CCNi), combining Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and statistical information mapping, to understand how the oscillatory networks of the brain can be modelled and interacted with to enhance or suppress visual perception.

This will enable them to gain a greater understanding of brain processes – which part does what and when – creating a model of the brain as an information processing device or a computer.

The research – ‘Cracking the Code of Oscillatory Brain Activity’, published in the latest edition of PLoS Biology – was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the ESRC and the MRC.

For more information contact Stuart Forsyth in the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 4831 or email stuart.forsyth@glasgow.ac.uk

IJHC – WHR Observations
The good news is that we are approaching clearer and clearer understandings about how the mind works. The bad news is that in the wrong hands, this technology could enable major invasions of our most private thoughts.

* * ENVIRONMENT / HEALING OUR PLANET * *

It's Official- Cell Phones are Killing Bees
Lori Zimmer
Inhabitat

Scientists may have found the cause of the world's sudden dwindling population of bees - and cell phones may be to blame. Research conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland has shown that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also may lead to their death. Over 83 experiments have yielded the same results. With virtually most of the population of the United States (and the rest of the world) owning cell phones, the impact has been greatly noticeable.

Led by researcher Daniel Favre, the alarming study found that bees reacted significantly to cell phones that were placed near or in hives in call-making mode. The bees sensed the signals transmitted when the phones rang, and emitted heavy buzzing noise during the calls. The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically. The study found that the bees' buzzing noise increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call - aka when signals are being transmitted, but remained normal when not in use.

The signals cause the bees to become lost and disoriented. The impact has already been felt the world over, as the population of bees in the U.S. and the U.K. has decreased by almost half in the last thirty years - which coincides with the popularization and acceptance of cell phones as a personal device. Studies as far back as 2008 have found that bees are repelled by cell phone signals.

Bees are an integral and necessary part of our agricultural and ecological systems, producing honey, and more importantly pollinating our crops. As it is unlikely that the world will learn to forgo the convenience of cell phones, it is unclear how much they will contribute to the decline of bees, and their impact on the environment.

Source: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/228544-It-s-Official-Cell-Phones-are-Killing-Bees

IJHC – WHR Observations
What are we to do? 70 percent of humanity's most common food crops depend on bees for pollination. The good news is that now we know another factor that is contributing to the disappearances of bees in countries around the world. The bad news is that humans are unlikely – in our current state of pursuit of selfish, self-interested goals – to spare the bees if it means giving up one of our most cherished modern conveniences. The good news, should we choose to live without cellphones – or to restrict them to residential areas – is that another endangered species will be saved: the wristwatch! (You know, that thing on a strap that people used to use for telling time before they came to rely on their cellphones and computers).

2010 BIP paper provides proof that the 2010 biodiversity target will not be met!

World leaders have failed to deliver commitments made in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss, and have instead overseen alarming biodiversity declines. These finding are the result of a new 2010 Biodiversity Indicator Partnership (2010 BIP) paper published in leading journal Science and represent the first assessment of how targets made through the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have not been met.

Compiling over 30 indicators – measures of different aspects of biodiversity, including changes in species’ populations and risk of extinction, habitat extent and community composition – the study found no evidence for a significant reduction in the rate of decline of biodiversity, and that the pressures facing biodiversity continue to increase. The synthesis provides overwhelming evidence that the 2010 target has not been achieved.

“Our data show that 2010 will not be the year that biodiversity loss was halted, but it needs to be the year in which we start taking the issue seriously and substantially increase our efforts to take care or what is left of our planet”, said Dr Stuart Butchart of the United Nation Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP WCMC), and the papers lead author.

The indicators included in the study were developed and synthesised by the 2010 BIP. The Partnership, co-ordinated by UNEP-WCMC brings together over 40 organizations working internationally at the forefront of indicator development to provide the best available information on biodiversity trends.

The results from this study feed into the Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, the flagship publication of the Convention on Biological Diversity, to be released on May 10th, when government representatives will meet to discuss the 2010 target and how to address the biodiversity crisis.

“Biodiversity concerns must be integrated across all parts of government and business, and the economic value of biodiversity needs to be accounted for adequately in decision making. Only then will we be able to address the problem”, said Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary to the CBD.
Download supporting material

Download official press release

Source: United Nations Environment Programme, World Conservation Monitoring Centre
http://www.unep-wcmc.org/latenews/PressRelease.htm

IJHC – WHR Observations
This is bad news indeed, though far from a surprise to anyone who has watched our world's governments focus on just about any priorities other than the mass extinctions that are going on in countries around the world, as well as in denizens of the oceans and skies. Many people cannot see that the losses of various species poses a threat to humanity, as well as to those life forms that we are genociding in huge numbers.

We have no way of knowing which species might prove vital to our own survival when some unknown tipping points push us into reliance on our local economies. The Incas had more than 200 varieties of potatoes. This enabled them to survive on whichever species flourished in any given year, under any given combinations of environmental factors – such as greater or lesser amounts of rainfall, sun or blights. With fewer and fewer varieties of plants and animals today, we might find ourselves without species that have the survival characteristics needed in the harshening environments humanity is creating.

* * HUMAN ECOLOGY * *

Fascinating synchronicities – two brilliant black laboratory assistants to cardiac surgeons

Hamilton Naki (26 June 1926 – 29 May 2005) was a black laboratory assistant to white cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard in South Africa under apartheid. He was recognized for his surgical skills and for his being able to teach medical students and physicians such skills despite not having received a formal medical education. His brilliant work was in the laboratory, with various animals, developing cardiac and liver surgery techniques.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Naki

Vivien Theodore Thomas (August 29, 1910 – November 26, 1985) was an African-American surgical technician who developed the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. He was an assistant to surgeon Alfred Blalock in Blalock's experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and later at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Without any education past high school, Thomas rose above poverty and racism to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons. Vivien Thomas was the first African American without a doctorate degree to perform open heart surgery on a white patient in the United States.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas

Thomas' story is portrayed in an excellent film:
Something the Lord Made (2004 // made for HBO)
IMDb synopsis: This film tells the story of the extraordinary 34-year partnership that began in Depression-era Nashville, Tennessee, in 1930, when Dr. Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) hires Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) as an assistant in his Vanderbilt University lab, expecting him to perform janitorial work. But, Thomas' remarkable manual dexterity and scientific acumen shatter Blalock's expectations, and Thomas rapidly becomes indispensable as a research partner to Blalock in his first daring forays into heart surgery. The film traces the groundbreaking work the two men undertake when they move in 1941 from Vanderbilt to Johns Hopkins, an institution where the only black employees are janitors and where Thomas must enter by the back door. Together, they boldly attack the devastating heart problem of Tetralogy of Fallot, also known as Blue Baby Syndrome, and in so doing they open the field of heart surgery. The film dramatizes their race to save dying "blue babies" against the background of a Jim Crow (racial segregation) America. Thomas earns Blalock's unalloyed respect and is asked to coach him through the first blue baby surgery over the protests of Hopkins administrators.
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386792/plotsummary
My thanks to Dhorea Lain for bringing this to my attention

IJHC – WHR Observations
Here are two black men with extraordinary gifts who led parallel lives, both assistants to world-renowned cardiac surgeons. Their lives brought healings to many people who needed surgery, as well as healings to prejudices against black people.

Thomas was able to suture babies' hearts and arteries without looking at what he was doing. His abilities were explained as being guided by the touch of his fingers. This is a very highly unlikely explanation, because surgical sutures are sewn with the help of instruments called forceps. To sense blindly what is happening with the tip of a needle that is grasped with forceps is such a stretch of imagination as to be unreasonable. The guidance of his fingers had to be through intuition or with the aid of spirit guides.

For more on spirit guidance in psychic surgery see Chapter 7 in Healing Research, Volume 3.