rss
Med Humanities 2001;27:89 doi:10.1136/mh.27.2.89
  • Editorial

Metaphors for medicine: revealing reflections or just popular parodies?

  1. Deborah Kirklin
  1. Royal Free & University College Medical School, London
  1. Address for correspondence: Centre for Medical Humanities, Department of Primary Care & Population Sciences, Royal Free & University College Medical School, Highgate Hill, London N19 5LW. Email: d.kirklin{at}pcps.ucl.ac.uk

    “‘ . . .before you get spoilt by it all. Before you become a fully qualified doctor, just give me a helping hand as a human being.’ (Kostoglotov: cancer patient)”1

    Are human beings irreversibly “spoilt” by medical training or merely disengaged from “normal” human interaction? If what is desired is a doctor who reaches out as a human being to his or her patients then it is important for educators to know why that sometimes fails to happen. Is the end product of medical training (sometimes) incapable of stretching out its hand or instead just disinclined to do so? If the latter, then presumably we should focus our energies on motivating practitioners to reach out by, for example, inspiring empathy. If, however, medical …

    [Full text of this article]

    This Article

    1. Extract
    2. Full text
    3. PDF

    Responses

    1. Submit a response
    2. No responses published

    Register for free content

    The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.

    Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.