Many past storytellers were great doctors, there were no established forms of writing, most of the stories passed on were by word of mouth, from learned medicine men. Literature was essential to being a good doctor; you must not only be knowledgeable with regards to disease and medicine, but also compassionate to your patient. A lot of modern practices stray from being sensitive, dehumanizing the patient and removing the passion which was once there, reason for this is because of lack of knowledge.
There are not very many doctors to this day who truly know how to convey emotion towards their patient, or are unwilling to create a relationship with them. Technology and money can also desensitize doctors to see patients as objects or units. “Compassion means co-suffering, the capacity and willingness of the physician somehow to share in the pain and anguish of those who seek help from him” (Pelligrino 1289). If the medical student were to be taught by a go
od professor, s/he will understand the importance of helping the patient to the furthest extent. This relationship between teacher and student is important because in most cases it is how the future doctor will treat his patients, much as how a child will pick up habits from their parents/ peers.
In medicine doctors must use their imagination much like in literature; every patient has different needs, and comes from different background. When you read literature there are many interpretations which are left to the readers mind, done purposely by the author to interact better with his/her audience. “Fictions are not bound, as medical studies are, by the actual patients who present themselves, the occasionally unreliable laboratory data, the regulations about human experimentation … they can see the diseased person simultaneously from the outside of the body, the inside of the mind, and the experience of the doctor watching the diseased” (Trautmann 24). Fiction has no limit; medicine in a sense
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