medicine

A so-called antimony war had been waged between French [Galenist] physicians and [alchemical, Paracelsian] iatrochemists since the beginning of the seventeenth century. What it lacked in bloodletting, this war made up for in bile.

Do what is right, and do it now.

(Florence) Nightingale's passion for statistics enabled her to persuade the government of the importance of a whole series of health reforms. for example, many people had argued that training nurses was a waste of time, because patients cared for by trained nurses actually had a higher mortality rate than those treated by untrained staff. Nightingale, however, pointed out that this was only because more serious cases were being sent to those wards with trained nurses. If the intention is to compare the results from two groups, then it is essential to assign patients randomly to the two groups. Sure enough, when Nightingale set up trials in which patients were randomly assigned to trained and untrained nurses, it became clear that the cohort of patients treated by trained nurses fared much better than their counterparts in wards with untrained nurses.

The patient is the one with the disease

The story was an 82 year old guy with a broken neck. He had apparently fallen in his bathroom that morning, cracking his 1st and 2nd vertebrae. I had a vague memory from medical school that this wasn't a good thing--the expression "hangman's fracture" kept bobbing up from the well of facts I do not use --but I had a much more distinct impression that this was not a case for cardiology."And Ortho isn't taking him because?" I said wearily."Because he's got internal organs, dude."I sighed. "So why me?""Because they got an EKG."The MAO was clearly enjoying himself. I remembered he had recently been accepted to a cardiology fellowship. I braced myself for the punch line."And?""And there's ectopy on it. Ectopy." He then made a noise intended to suggest a ghost haunting something.

Life is choices, and they are relentless. No sooner have you made one choice than another is upon you.

For years I had convinced myself that, as a doctor, I sacrificed moments with friends, family, and my husband for the greater good. The call to heal the sick and tend the injured superseded all else. The Lord heaped blessings upon me, and I hurled them back in the name of __ervice_ to him.I__ a woman surgeon, I would snap. You made me this way. I have a legacy to carry on...The prospect of abandoning a secure position with excellent prospects for advancement terrified me. I spent many nights agonizing that, despite the Lord__ call, my decision to leave medicine was reckless or irresponsible. Such fears are normal and expected, but reflect our own limited understanding, rather than an enduring faith in the Lord. God is sovereign over our lives, and whatever doubts we have, we may trust that he knows the path and is in command over all.Christ has already overcome, and so we have nothing to fear. From Proverbs: __he heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps_ (Proverbs 16:9), and __rust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths_ (Proverbs 3:5_6)...From 1 Thessalonians 1:3: We remember __efore our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ._ Christ died and rose victorious over death and sin to free us, so that we may have the hope and fulfillment that comes from living in him.

Turning at the sound of voices, Amelia saw Merripen carrying her sister outside. Win was dressed in a nightgown and robe and swathed in a shawl, her slim arms looped around Merripen__ neck. With her white garments and blond hair and fair skin, Win was nearly colorless except for the flags of soft pink across her cheekbones and the vivid blue of her eyes. __ that was the most terrible medicine,_ she was saying cheerfully. __t worked,_ Merripen pointed out, bending to settle her carefully on the chaise. __hat doesn__ mean I forgive you for bullying me into taking it._ __t was for your own good._ __ou__e a bully,_ Win repeated, smiling into his dark face. __es, I know,_ Merripen murmured, tucking the lap blankets around her with extreme care. Delighted by the improvement in her sister__ condition, Amelia smiled. __e really is dreadful. But if he manages to persuade more villagers to help clean the house, you will have to forgive him, Win._ Win__ blue eyes twinkled. She spoke to Amelia, while her gaze remained on Merripen. __ have every faith in his powers of persuasion.

In the nineteenth century, girls who learned to develop orgasmic capacity by masturbation were regarded as medical problems. Often they were 'treated' or 'corrected' by amputation or cautery of the clitoris or 'miniature chastity belts,' sewing the vaginal lips together to put the clitoris out of reach, and even castration by surgical removal of the ovaries. But there are no references in the medical literature to the surgical removal of testicles or amputation of the penis to stop masturbation in boys.In the United States, the last recorded clitoridectomy for curing masturbation was performed in 1948-- on a five-year-old girl.

But against sandfly fever one could be inoculated, and I have another, hideously vivid picture of a great menacing brute of a doctor sticking a Thing that ended in a vicious needle into my mother's arm. Mad to defend my own, I scrambled off my father's knee, and flew to her rescue. I fixed my teeth in the doctor's horrible hairy wrist and hung on like a terrier, until my father succeeded in prising me away. Afterwards, everybody said how wonderful the doctor had been, because he continued calmly giving the inoculation while I was prised off him, instead of breaking the needle in my mother's arm. But nobody said how brave it was of me, only three years old, when all is said and done, and gone in the legs at that, to take on such fearful odds for the sake of love.

In the community of living tissues, the uncontrolled mob of misfits that is cancer behaves like a gang of perpetually wilding adolescents. They are the juvenile delinquents of cellular society.

The pressures of the current neoliberal capitalist system of health care and its financing force health professionals into a double bind. Either they spend the time and energy necessary to listen to and fully treat the patient and put their job and clinic in economic jeopardy, or they move at a frenetic pace to keep their practice afloat and only partially attend to the patient in their presence.

We may indeed be justly proud of our apostolic succesion. THESE ARE OUR METHODS - to carefully observe the phenomena of life in all its stages , to cultivate reasoning faculty so as to be able to know the true from the false. THIS IS OUR WORK - to prevent disease, to relieve suffering and to heal the sick.

...my patient needed a great deal of reassurance that there had been nothing unusual about the way her mother died, that she had not done something wrong to prevent her mother from experiencing that "spiritual" death with dignity that she had anticipated. All of her efforts and expectations had been in vain, and now this very intelligent woman was in despair. I tried to make clear to her that the belief in the probability of death with dignity is our, and society's, attempt to deal with the reality of what is all too frequently a series of destructive events that involve by their very nature the disintegration of the dying person's humanity. I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.

Believing is half the cure.

A doctor's mission should not be to prevent death, but more importantly it should be to improve the quality of life.

Doctors are great--as long as you don't need them.

What are called viruses are always dead and incapable of any acts whatsoever. Dead matter may be acted upon but never acts of itself.