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Story #1481 (5786-32) 10 Iyar 5786 (April 27, 2026) "Rating One's Own Quality of Life" The cancer patient turned to his old friend in Benei Brak and asked if he would accompany him to the recommended Mayo Clinic in Minnesota USA to serve as a translator. Why this week? This is the first full week of IYAR, nicknamed “the Month of Healing,” because the Hebrew letters of its name are also an abbreviation for “I, G-D, am your healer.” Story in PDF format for more convenient printing Rating One's Own Quality of Life
Shimon, a student of Sephardic ancestry, learned together with him in the prestigious Slabodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak. Years later, Shimon was diagnosed with cancer, and Rabbi Elimelech Firer, the renowned medical referral expert, felt that his best chance of recovery would be at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Shimon turned to his old friend and asked if he would accompany him to Mayo to serve as a translator. [Mayo is such a world-class medical center that among its teams of everything-medical are also translators of every language, but they are not always available, and one who is in pain does not wish to wait hours to explain how they are suffering.] When you are requested a favor of this magnitude and under such circumstances, there really aren't a variety of options, so off the two flew to the Mayo Clinic in July 2006. The Mayo Clinic, and the city of Rochester, Minnesota, in which it is located, is a world away in terms of an environment where Torah scholars would feel at home.[1] One evening, the loneliness of Shimon and Rabbi Aharon somewhat dissipated when they were invited for supper to the home of Mayo's sole Orthodox physician, Dr. Axel Pflueger. On that occasion Dr. Pflueger related the following incident. One day while doing his rounds in Mayo, he saw written at the foot of the bed - and unable to be viewed by the bed's paraplegic occupant - "Because of Bob's poor quality of life, his social worker should encourage the family to declare DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) and medications should also not be administered." Dr Pflueger was appalled at the audacity of the doctor who penned this note, one who was clearly endowed with an acute case of 'Doctor-thinking-he-is-G-d-Syndrome.' Accordingly, Dr. Pflueger lodged a complaint against the note's author, Dr. O'Neill, with the Mayo Clinic ethics committee. Bob (real name) was a 46-year-old who was involved in an automobile accident when he was six. Like most suffering from spinal cord injury, he had increased risk for respiratory tract infections like pneumonia due to the weakened muscles in the chest and abdomen, which cannot breathe robustly or cough. When Bob would contract pneumonia, which he invariably did on a yearly basis, he had no recourse but to travel to Mayo to be healed. It is not unlikely that many people might conclude that a paraplegic suffering annually from pneumonia and a host of other issues has a very low quality of life. The ethics committee, like everything else at Mayo, is the gold standard. The head of the ethics committee invited Dr. Pflueger and Dr. O'Neill (not his real name) into his office to resolve the complaint. As is standard, the accuser is given the floor first. Dr. Pflueger began by asking Dr. O'Neill to rate his own quality of life on a scale of 1-10. (At the Mayo Clinic, everything is done on a scale of 1-10. "How is your pain 1-10?; how much relief do you feel 1-10?; describe your immobility 1-10.") O'Neill thought for a moment and replied "6-7." This is not the kind of answer one would expect from a person who has climbed to the highest rung in the medical world, holding a prestigious job at Mayo. Why, 6-7 is barely passing! Axel Pflueger then turned to the head of the committee, acknowledged to be one of the most celebrated medical ethicists in the world, and inquired, "What precisely are the criteria to determine one's quality of life?" The chairman articulated a well-rehearsed impromptu response, "A person, and only that individual, can determine their own quality of life." To which Pflueger countered, "Then what, if I may ask, is your quality of life 1-10?" The chairman responded with a disappointing 7-8. Pflueger then proposed that they pose this question to Bob. So, all three traipsed over to Bob's room. "Hey Bob," Pflueger asked in the company of his colleagues, "what would you say, on a scale of 1-10, is your quality of life?" "9-10," Bob responded without any hesitancy. "And I'll tell you why. In the morning the sun's rays shine on my face and neck, radiating soothing warmth. Sometimes when the weather is good, my mother wheels me outside on my gurney and I am able to smell the perfume of the flowers and hear the singsong of the birds…" Suddenly Bob got lost in his contemplations. "I am going to have to change my answer," the supine speaker corrected himself. "I am definitely a full-fledged 10." With a nostalgic appearance, he reminisced, "Sometimes my mother makes me oatmeal, and because of my condition the only oatmeal I can eat, like all other foods, is a watery gruel. Upon occasion she grates apples very finely and throws in cinnamon and the flavor is just out of this world!" Bob continued to hold forth, justifying his top score, while the two doctors looked at each other in an apotheosis of remorse. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why this week? This is the first full week of IYAR, nicknamed "the Month of Healing," because the Hebrew letters of its name are also an abbreviation for "I, G-D, am your healer." [1] Although there
is a warm Chabad presence there. Treat yourself to a tour through their web-site
[chabadrochestermn.com] which includes the ways in which they interact with
Mayo -y.t.
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Yerachmiel
Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor
of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories
to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells
them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.