Good Deeds, Bad Decisions, and the Laws of Karma

Doctors have courtside seats to view the medical karma affecting patients like my father-in-law. Last week would have been his 92nd birthday. It was not to be. He succumbed to a rarely discussed but dangerous condition: A medical skeptic, he had little sense of how to balance his beliefs versus the expertise of others.  

He addressed his long-standing cancer phobia with a strict macrobiotic diet and near religious adherence to the Gerson health program. When his daughter was diagnosed with cancer that spread to her lungs, liver, brain — essentially everywhere — he encouraged her to seek help at a Gerson clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. Twenty-four years later, she’s pleased that she never considered the advice. 

My father-in-law died abruptly from cancer at age 76. He presented at a late stage and passed away within days. Given his obsession with prioritizing trendy health protocols over valid medical science, I wonder about the influence of medical karma, a health-related version of the cosmic “gotcha” that pairs our actions with consequences.  

Doctors witness medical karma in cancer, cigarette use, drug use and COVID-19 among other conditions. Of course, medical professionals are not always right, and their patients should not slavishly accept all advice. Doctors can be wrong and medical opinions can differ vastly.  But medical expertise bears at least some consideration. A pithy Halloween yard tombstone epitaph got it right with the ironic post-humous boast, “I did my own research.”  

What of life beyond the medical realm? Is there a collective counterpart of medical karma? Over the last year, I’ve watched the Russian invasion of Ukraine and wondered. The bald-faced “might makes right” power play peppered with every sort of human rights abuse seemed to pass without any accountability. The most populous nations of the world, India and China, pursued self-interest, protecting their relationship with the aggressor rather than standing up for the victim or for basic rule of law.  

Anyone fearing a Russian exemption from the laws of karma might check the Economist’s recent review of the country’s current demographic nightmare. In addition to 175,000 to 250,000 war casualties, an estimated half-million people have fled the country. The bitterness of war has also poisoned family life: Amazingly, the number of births registered last April was the nation’s lowest since the 18th  century. Due to horrendous management of COVID-19 and to alcoholism, Russian male life expectancy has plunged almost five years to equal Haiti’s and now lags a remarkable six years behind Bangladesh. It turns out that killing Ukrainians also kills Russians at home.   

But it doesn’t stop there. Despite the questionable impact of sanctions, the Russian economy now trails most of the world, with GDP falling 3.7% in the last quarter. Inflation compounds the problems. Only an iron fist allows the government to maintain this rolling disaster both at home and in Ukraine. Were Putin to indulge a contemplative moment, he might consider the fate of an earlier “might makes right” empire. For 70 years, between CE 66 and CE 135, the Roman empire fought a series of wars to suppress the Jews of ancient Judea. By the end, most of the vast Jewish population had been killed, enslaved or exiled. Roman General Titus’ victory in Jerusalem was commemorated with a victory arch in the Forum of Rome, surviving to this day, depicting the pillage.   

Two millennia later, Jews once again rule Jerusalem. Hebrew, the ancient language of those crushed by Rome, rings again through ancient streets where torrents of blood once flowed. In contrast, the Roman victors no longer even exist as a people, their Latin tongue known only to scholars and students of antiquity.

Like the health of individuals, the well-being of nations often reflects their actions. 

If this kind of karma exists, it’s not magical and the good guys don’t always win. Like the health of individuals, the well-being of nations often reflects their actions.  

The ultimate outcome of the Ukraine war remains uncertain. Regardless, the weight of Russian atrocities and the profound unjustness of the actions will not allow them to simply dissipate into history.  Eventually a “karmic accounting” can be expected. William Faulkner’s musings on the American South might serve as a warning and a reminder on both personal and national karma: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Daniel Stone is Regional Medical Director of Cedars-Sinai Valley Network and a practicing internist and geriatrician with Cedars Sinai Medical Group. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Cedars-Sinai.