"The practice of medicine is rooted in a
covenant of trust among patients, physicians, and society. The ethic of medicine must seek
to balance the physician's responsibility to each patient and the professional, collective
obligation to all who need medical care." Why call a patient a
"patient" and not a "client" or a "consumer"? Patient is derived from the Latin word patiens, the present participle
of the deponent verb
pati, meaning "one who endures" or "one who suffers". Patient
is also the adjective
form of patience. Both
senses of the word share a common origin. In itself the definition of patient doesn't imply suffering
or passivity but the role it describes is often associated with the definitions of the
adjective form: "enduring trying circumstances with even temper". Some have argued recently that the term should be dropped,
because it underlines the inferior status of recipients of health care.[2] For them, "the active patient is a
contradiction in terms, and it is the assumption underlying the passivity that is the most
dangerous". Unfortunately the alternative terms also seem to raise objections: Client, whose Latin root cliens means "one who
is obliged to make supplications to a powerful figure for material assistance",
carries a sense of subservience. Consumer suggests both a financial relationship and a
particular social/political stance, implying that health care services operate exactly
like all other commercial markets. Many reject that term on the grounds that consumerism
is an individualistic concept that fails to capture the particularity of health care
systems. ...Extracted from Wikipedia "Medicus Nihil Aliud Est Quam Animan
Consollatio" A Latin Proverb translating to: “Dedicate some of your life to others.
Your dedication will not be a sacrifice. It will be an exhilarating experience because it
is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end.” Dr. Thomas Dooley "Are you willing to admit that
probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of
life but what you are going to put into it? To close your book of complaints against the
management of the universe and to look around for a place where you can sow a few seeds of
happiness?" "Do
you remember Dr Tom Dooley? He said he learned his formula for happiness the day a small
boat pulled alongside his craft carrying his first close-up glimpse of SE Asia. On that
boat were over 1000 refugees -- suffering from smallpox, terminal tuberculosis and
diseases he couldn't even name. Many of the children on board were unconscious from the
115 degree heat. As the only doctor, Dooley attacked this great mountain of suffering with
a feeling of hopelessness and despair. But before long, he said, a strange excitement
began to grip him. A splint took the agony out of a broken arm, a boil could be lanced,
some vitamins could help another. That day he learned he could be deeply, joyously happy.
I've always appreciated his explanation for this happiness. He said he had learned a
fundamental truth about himself: he was extra-sensitive to sorrow, and that when he did
something about it, no matter how small, he couldn't help but be happy." "Dr. Dooley held up in front of the
camera a tiny, ill, starving child with a distended belly. Now, in the 1950s, such sights
were never seen on television, or in magazines. It was shocking, and I recoiled
emotionally. But then he calmly said, in essence,“When you look at this child you see
something horrifying, but I look at this child and know that I have the knowledge and
skill to make him well.” -- Dr. Thomas Dooley, USN MD, 1954 -
Supervised refugee camps to house fleeing N Vietnamise, l959 - Diagnosed, Cancer, Returned
to Laos, 1961 - Died, age 34. From his final book, The Night They Burned the Mountain Physicians must find and cultivate meaning in their work.
MRB To be a Physician and particularly to care for the
critically or terminally ill patient is “a time for searching and yearning and
painful emotions” MRB The Service of Medicine is not a relationship
between an expert and a problem. It is a human relationship… a work of
the heart and soul.” Rachel Remen “If medicine protects life then…literature
interprets it.” W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter, Literature and Medicine During the
18th Century There is “a need to learn how to teach the important
empathetic art skills of medicine…,” Julie Parsonnet, M.D. Stanford University
School of Medicine “…It is no longer acceptable to know our own
worth [ Nurses ] and not attempt to articulate what it is that we do, see, feel and
provide to our patients, families, and communities.” Linda Pellico, Yale School of
Nursing
Philosophies
The Council of Medical Specialty Societies, 2000
"A Doctor is nothing bu the constellation of the soul"