Medical ethics
The Modern Doctor
“Well, they like to save lives. So anything’s okay, as long as life continues. It doesn’t matter if you’re hooked up to a million machines.”1 Margaret Edson’s play, Wit, details the hospital life of Dr. Bearing, an English professor slowly dying of cancer. What is striking about the play is that her doctor, Jason Posner, [...]
Harnessing the Placebo? The Human Side of Medicine
“Placebos are the ghosts that haunt our house of biomedical objectivity, the creatures that rise up from the dark and expose the paradoxes and fissures in our own self-created definitions of the real and active factors in treatment”.1 So writes Harvard professor Anne Harrington, and today, the mysteries and contradictions generated by the placebo continue [...]
Healthcare Reform: Using Medical Humanities as an Alternative Solution
“16 is too young to sell yourself. You’re old enough to feel like a child When you cry. You’re father died in 2005, you said (by way of explanation) To the undercover cop. He said your small arms raged Against his chest, he said He wasn’t fast enough: You drove a blade into your [...]
The Doctor-Patient Relationship in the Internet Age
Introduction The advent of the “information technology age” has led to a rapid change in the doctor‐patient dynamic. Before the Internet became host to a plethora of medical information and advice, the doctor‐patient relationship was confined primarily to office consultations. In that setting, doctors advised patients on the best course of medical action, and the [...]
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