Cure for the body, care for the heart and mind

WHILE health care specialists labor toward curing cancer (which causes 13 percent of all human deaths, according to a 2006 World Health Organization report), the vital thing that would have a greater impact on the lives of cancer patients and their families is supportive mental and emotional therapy, expressed through love and care. One health care specialist who strives to give both to his cancer patients— cure and care—is oncologist and hematologist, Dr. Eduardo Lim. One of only two Filipino-American oncologists in the whole of Southern California, Dr. Lim is an outstanding physician who understands that cancer often brings with it a host of distressing symptoms such as anxiety, fear and depression. Providing adequate relief from such distress, however, is not the norm among health care providers, says a new report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine’s National Cancer Policy Board. But Dr. Lim had made it his life’s mission to provide "TLC—tender loving care" to all his patients, knowing it will greatly affect not only the treatment of their disease but vastly improve the quality of their day-today lives and the chances for remission and life extension.