In the Hands of Doctors: Touch and Trust in Medical Care (original) (raw)
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Journal of the Gujarat Research Society, 2019
Health is wealth. The earthly journey between life and death depends on good mental and physical health. The bounties of nature are enjoyed well if one is blessed with sound health. However, in the recent decade, health has come out as a big issue because of the challenges it is facing from pollution, changed ecosystem, adulterated food, ingestion of chemicals through food articles, work pressure, changing social dynamics, breaking of family structure, narrowing down of families, rise of individuality etc. all these factors are directly or indirectly impacting on the physical and mental health of an individual. Rapid increase in diseases is compelling the patients to look up to doctors and health care providers. Although, in the past few decades there had been tremendous breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases with the help of technology yet there is a link that is missing day-by-day between the patient and health benefits. Historically, the modern method of treatment of diseases through professional doctors started gaining reputation in late 18 th century in America. It started gaining popularity because of its scientific methods of healing. By that time, historically and culturally, there was a conflict between modern and traditional healers within a community. Maureen Tuthill states in her book on Health and Sickness that, 'the learned physician came to exemplify the confident, intellectual leader who would stabilize the eroding stratification system in a post-Revolutionary society. The cultural tension created by these divergent views (i.e. modern and traditional methods of treatment) of the doctor in America endured for decades.' The American Medical Association consolidated the profession in late 19 th c. and the American physician was recognised as a man of good social status. Later on, the common public showed inclination towards the professionally educated physician. During those days the professionally trained physicians felt the need to use the title, 'Dr.' so as show them distinctively from the traditional healers. With the passage of each decade scientific ways of modern treatment earned the trust of people. Rapid innovations, researches and introduction of new drugs developed a trust in allopathic means of healing. The doctors were largely research oriented individuals, they were empathetic and they had a holistic
Blurring Boundaries: Towards a Medical History of the Twentieth Century
This special issue of the Low Countries Historical Review intends to show the potential of medical history to contribute to major historical debates, e.g. on the rise of the welfare state. Together, the articles in this issue make clear that medical history, for the twentieth century even more so than for earlier time periods, is strongly embedded in social, cultural and political history. The second goal of the special issue is methodological. It aims to highlight the conceptual work being done by medical historians in oral history, digital history and the study of material culture. These methodologies allow them to expand the range of actors in the medical field: architects, missionaries, ‘laypersons’, advertisers and drug users all extend the medical field beyond the established categories of ‘doctors’ and ‘patients’. Through their eyes, the particularities of twentieth-century health care become clear, such as the strong presence of mass media and public opinion, the role of international organisations, and the redefining of patients as consumers and citizens entitled to health care.
Is Medicine Special, and if so, What Follows?: An Attempt at Rational Reconstruction
Philosophy and Medicine
The title of this volume promises "dialogues". Dialogues are an apt manner of presentation where the native complexity of novel topics calls for a multiplicity of perspectives. 1 In contrast to the employment of dialogues as a mere literary device, the "real life" confrontation of different researchers combines the advantage of greater heuristic variety with the disadvantage of greater conceptual confusion. As no one author's mind has arranged the illuminating mutual understandings and misunderstandings between the participants, no one can be sure about understanding them all. In this essay, I shall try to remedy the latter disadvantage. I shall construe a common conceptual ground on which the authors assembled in this volume, in spite of their heterogeneous interests and their disagreements on special issues, could conceivably all feel at home. In response to the rich variety of subjects, viewpoints and argumentative levels characterizing the authors' very diverse contributions, a coherent account of medicine's place between science, technology, and art will be stipulated. The difficulty of such an undertaking becomes obvious if one spells out the mutually exclusive positions which the various essays imply. Such oppositions could be reconstructed in many ways, but already one single version will illustrate the point: 1. "Medicine is a science, no longer an art" refers to the transformation of merely empirical or wait-and-see medicine to a discipline favoring rational justification and predictability (Feinstein in [50]). 2. "Medicine is still an art, not a science" insists on the individual nature of patients which cannot simply be subsumed under general laws ([20], notwithstanding [36]). 3. "Medicine is a technology, no longer an art" regards the increasing controllability and effectiveness of patient care [59]. 4. "Medicine is still an art, not a technology" emphasizes the personal side of truly efficient health care and the intersubjective aspect of the physician-patient relationship [53]. 5. "Medicine is a science, not a technology" highlights the importance of purely scientific research for the eventual improvement of applicable knowledge (Virchow in ([18], [36]).