According to Leo Tolstoy, one of the world’s greatest novelists and philosophers, most doctors on duty are “preoccupied with empty formalism, focused on the rote treatment of disease – and utterly missing the larger human significance” (Kalanithi, 85). In fact, Tolstoy was accurate: lack of passionate and sympathetic doctors is the stark reality of today’s society. Indeed, the very conviction of all doctors is to wholeheartedly strive to cure both the ill patients and the ill society. Among all doctors throughout the history, Dr. Norman Bethune, a surgeon, an inventor, and a political activist, is indeed a remarkable one who has devoted his life to reform the medical care of the society and cure the sick in the vanguard. As a symbol of humanitarianism, …show more content…
In 1926, while working in Detroit, Bethune was found to have contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, at the age of 36. In the absence of antibiotics, the only treatment Bethune could get was to take a bed rest during his confinement in Trudeau Sanatorium in upstate New York. Frustrated with the ineffective rest cure, Bethune began studying about tuberculosis and its treatment from a book called The Surgery of Pulmonary Tuberculosis by Dr. John Alexander that he found in the medical library of the sanatorium. Artificial pneumothorax, a technique that required “a hollow needle to be inserted between the ribs” and the air to be “pumped into the chest cavity around the lung,” according to Roderick Stewart and Sharon Stewart in Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune, is what he discovered and had put his hopes for cure (Stewart and Stewart, 60). However, the problem was that pneumothorax treatment “was still considered to be a form of therapy in its experimental stages” as noted in The Scalpel, the Sword, and according to Jean Deslauriers, the author of the paper The Medical Life of Henry Norman Bethune, “the physicians at the sanatorium were reluctant to perform a procedure that they considered to be risky” (Allan and Gordon, 74; Deslauriers). Nevertheless, Bethune’s unflinching courage did not allow him to stay confined in the sanatorium receiving ineffective bed rest. Holding the book in his hands, “he marched off to see Dr. Fred Heise, head of the medical staff, and demanded that the pneumothorax procedure be performed on him” as it is described in Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune (Stewart and Stewart, 60). He convinced the medical staff how he would “welcome the risk” as an experienced physician and “was ready to act as a guinea pig himself” to provide the doctors the opportunity to try the novel therapeutic procedure on him (Stewart and Stewart, 60; Allan and Gordon, 74).
Jarrod J. Rein is an eighteen-year-old with dark brown hair and brown eyes to match the brown arid dirt of Piedmont, Oklahoma. His skin is a smooth warm tan glow that opposes his white smile making his teeth look like snow. Standing a great height of six foot exactly, his structure resembles a bear. He is attending Piedmont high school where he in his last year of high school (senior year). He is studying to be a forensics anthropologist. Also he is studying early in the field of anatomy to be successful in his profession. While not always on the rise for knowledge Jarrod’s swimming for his high school. In a sense it’s like you see double.
The concepts discussed within the article regarding medicalization and changes within the field of medicine served to be new knowledge for me as the article addressed multiple different aspects regarding the growth of medicalization from a sociological standpoint. Furthermore, the article “The Shifting Engines of Medicalization” discussed the significant changes regarding medicalization that have evolved and are evidently practiced within the contemporary society today. For instance, changes have occurred within health policies, corporatized medicine, clinical freedom, authority and sovereignty exercised by physicians has reduced as other factors began to grow that gained importance within medical care (Conrad 4). Moreover, the article emphasized
Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard Medical School graduate and writer for The New Yorker, phenomenally illustrates the unknown side of healthcare professions in his book, Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. By exploring the ethical and analytical aspects of medicine while entertaining readers with relatable anecdotes, Gawande impresses on his audience the importance of recognizing the wonders of the healthcare field, as well as the fallibility of those within it.
Even in the medical field, male doctors were dominate to the hundreds of well educated midwives. “Male physicians are easily identified in town records and even in Martha’s diary, by the title “Doctor.” No local woman can be discovered that way” (Ulrich, 1990, pg.61). Martha was a part of this demoralized group of laborers. Unfortunately for her, “in twentieth-century terms, the ability to prescribe and dispense medicine made Martha a physician, while practical knowledge of gargles, bandages, poultices and clisters, as well as willingness to give extended care, defined her as a nurse” (Ulrich, 1990, pg.58). In her diary she even portrays doctors, not midwives, as inconsequential in a few medical
People trust doctors to save lives. Everyday millions of Americans swallow pills prescribed by doctors to alleviate painful symptoms of conditions they may have. Others entrust their lives to doctors, with full trust that the doctors have the patient’s best interests in mind. In cases such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the Crownsville Hospital of the Negro Insane, and Joseph Mengele’s Research, doctors did not take care of the patients but instead focused on their self-interest. Rebecca Skloot, in her contemporary nonfiction novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, uses logos to reveal corruption in the medical field in order to protect individuals in the future.
“When Doctors Make Mistakes” narrates an event where the author Atul Gawande, a doctor, made a mistake that cost a women her life. He relates that it is hard to talk about the mistakes that occurred with the patient's family lest it be brought up in court. In that instance the family and doctor are either wrong or right, there is no middle ground in a “black-and-white mortality case”(658). Even the most educated doctors make simple mistakes that hold immense consequences but can only speak about them with fellow doctors during a Morbidity and Mortality Conference.
Hern, Frances. Norman Bethune: the incredible life and tragic death of a revered Canadian doctor. Canmore, Alta.: Altitude Pub. Canada, 2004.
Diligence is a virtue. This is a theme Atul Gawande presents to the reader throughout Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. In each story, Gawande provides insight on medical studies he has previously embarked upon. For example, in “The Mop-up” the author tells us about a time when he went to India to observe the efforts to eradicate polio. Gawande explains how he followed a supervisor around and how vaccinations were performed. Additionally, in another chapter he debates on whether physicians should take part in death sentences. Throughout his adventures Gawande provides numerous enriching personal accounts of controversial events and what it is like to be a doctor; each with diligence playing a key part.
This internal conflict is a result of the mistakes a physician makes, and the ability to move on from it is regarded as almost unreachable. For example, in the essay, “When Doctors Make Mistakes”, Gawande is standing over his patient Louise Williams, viewing her “lips blue, her throat swollen, bloody, and suddenly closed passage” (73). The imagery of the patient’s lifeless body gives a larger meaning to the doctor’s daily preoccupations. Gawande’s use of morbid language helps the reader identify that death is, unfortunately, a facet of a physician’s career. However, Gawande does not leave the reader to ponder of what emotions went through him after witnessing the loss of his patient. He writes, “Perhaps a backup suction device should always be at hand, and better light more easily available. Perhaps the institutions could have trained me better for such crises” (“When Doctors Make Mistakes” 73). The repetition of “perhaps” only epitomizes the inability to move on from making a mistake. However, this repetitive language also demonstrates the ends a doctor will meet to save a patient’s life (73). Therefore, it is not the doctor, but medicine itself that can be seen as the gateway from life to death or vice versa. Although the limitations of medicine can allow for the death of a patient to occur, a doctor will still experience emotional turmoil after losing someone he was trying to
As a society we place those in the medical profession on a pedestal. They are people to be looked up to and admired. In many ways they are Gods, right here with us on earth. People put the hope and faith in doctors hoping they can perform miracles. Throughout history, doctors have indeed preformed many wonders. There were, however, some doctors that betrayed this belief and peoples trust. These doctors could be found in concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Dachau. These doctors committed unspeakable acts against the Jews and other minorities, believing that they were conducting helpful experiments. Following the holocaust, however, they were punished for their actions.
...e gap in attitudes between pre-medicalized and modern time periods. The trends of technological advancement and human understanding project a completely medicalized future in which medical authorities cement their place above an intently obedient society.
Almost doctors and physicians in the world have worked at a hospital, so they must know many patients’ circumstances. They have to do many medical treatments when the patients come to the emergency room. It looks like horror films with many torture scenes, and the patients have to pay for their pains. The doctors have to give the decisions for every circumstance, so they are very stressful. They just want to die instead of suffering those medical treatments. In that time, the patients’ family just believes in the doctors and tells them to do whatever they can, but the doctors just do something that 's possible. Almost patients have died after that expensive medical treatments, but the doctors still do those medical procedures. That doctors did not have enough confidence to tell the truth to the patients’ families. Other doctors have more confidence, so they explain the health condition to the patients’ families. One time, the author could not save his patient, and the patient had found another doctor to help her. That doctor decided to cut her legs, but the patient still died in fourteen days
Medicine as a Form of Social Control This critique will examine the view that medicine is a form of social control. There are many theorists that have different opinions on this view. This critique will discuss each one and their different views. We live in a society where there is a complex division of labour and where enormous varieties of specialist healing roles are recognised.
In many cases Dr. Norman Bethuune Saved the lives of people who were otherwise terminally ill. His actions made him very well known all around the country, however he did gain a poor reputaion within the medical community becasue of his actions. Saving a persons life who was otherwise had no chance of survival is very large imact on one's live and it doesnt require very much thought as to why that is. Some of Bethune's patients did not get so lucky, and again that is a impact on that persons life, but in a negative way. Individual actions do affect others, Dr Norman Bethune was for the most part a one man team, he did this himself, it was his own creative thinking that brought him to success in his feild.
Every country has its own culture which generated from the history. Culture influence not only to people’s life and the way they do business. Korea has long history. Even though its culture influenced by the Japanese and Chinese, but it is not exactly same as their culture.