Examples Of Confronting Culture In Medicine's Culture Of No Culture

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“Confronting ‘culture’ in in medicine’s culture of no culture”, by Taylor, J, 2003

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Medicine as discipline is assumed to have a culture of ‘no culture,’ why is this? This is because right from training, through residency and even when one becomes a doctor, physicians are trained to think of themselves, their practices and ideas as being completely devoid of culture, but rather, as timeless truths that need not be questioned. This is why medicine is assumed to have a culture of no culture; but is this entirely true?

As articulated in the article, physicians endure medical school as well as their residency for one sole purpose, that is, to acquire medical knowledge that their patients do not have, so that they may be able to assist them when need arises, now, after spending all this time trying to achieve this one goal, would it then be fair of us to require of them to accept the conception that, their view of reality is simply just a view,-among the many other views-, and not reality itself?

Over the years, the need for cultural competence has grown in the field of medicine, with the increase of different types and races of people in the U.S. As a result of this, courses and practices meant to create and nurture cultural competence among medical students have been introduced in their school curricula, but as stated in the above article, medicine students seldom take them as seriously as they do those other courses, that are supposed to give them “real” knowledge. Why is this? Well, according to the article, this is because “cultural” knowledge and “real” knowledge are two very different things, which obviously begs the question, is one more important than the other?

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...sicians as well.

However, these meanings, of what it once meant to be a physician as was established by the white coat, are currently being eroded by the recent changes in the way scientific medicine is now being seen. This may be as a result of the emergence of a capitalistic or rather profit driven medical system, or due to a number of many other factors. Whatever the case, one thing remains for sure, the subsequent tension between the profession and the society is affecting the interaction between the individual patients –and the physicians, gradually creating irreparable rift of distrust, and rendering null and void what the ‘white coats’ were created to stand for.

Reference

“The doctor’s white coat. The image of the physician in modern America..”NCBI.U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. http://www.ncbi.nml.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8897//