Dr. Peter Breggin Hour 7-8-26

The healing power of love, creativity, and faith

Peter Breggin MD & Ginger Breggin

Mon Jul 6

The Breggin Hour

Cultural Wars, Faith, Family Life, Health

It was one of those recording sessions that lingers in the heart long after the microphones are turned off. On a recent afternoon, Peter and I had the profound privilege of speaking with Dr. Francis Christian—a gifted surgeon, poet, professor, and thinker whose life embodies the integration of science, art, and deep faith. His latest book of poems, To a Nurse Friend Weeping, published by a small Canadian house, and his Substack (francischristian.substack.com) reflect a man who sees the full spectrum of human experience: suffering, joy, and the creative spark that connects us all to something greater.

Dr. Christian joined us as we explored themes close to our own lives—especially in this season of recovery and reflection following Peter’s stroke. The conversation flowed naturally from the personal to the cultural, touching on what it means to be fully human in a world that often fragments us.

Reconnecting Medicine to the Human Story

As a professor of surgery at the University of Saskatchewan, with expertise in trauma and oncology, and a former director of patient safety and quality improvement for the province, Dr. Christian could easily have focused solely on technical excellence. Instead, he founded the Surgical Humanities program and served as founding editor of the Journal of Surgical Humanities.

He explained it beautifully: “Unless you’re acquainted intimately and engaged with the human story, how can you actually treat the human being?” The humanities—literature, poetry, music, and visual arts—remind physicians, residents, and students of the narratives behind the patients they serve. He shared how he witnessed talented young people set aside their creativity under the pressures of training, only to become cynical. The program sought to reconnect them: through an annual musical evening with an orchestra of physicians, nurses, and students, and a journal that welcomed high-literary-quality pieces from medical voices or non-medical perspectives on medical themes.

Creativity isn’t a luxury; it is essential to wholeness. As Dr. Christian noted, we are created in the image of God, the Master Creator. To be fully alive is to create—to engage with joy, sorrow, suffering, and relief in ways that science alone cannot teach. For those of us who have faced illness or cared for the sick or wounded, a physician who is truly present—who hears you, respects your humanity—becomes part of the healing itself.

Sexuality, Sublimation, and the Gifts of Commitment