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Addressing the problems facing medicine and medical education Cassell discusses the new generalism and the skills that physicians-in-training must be taught in order to practice the art of doctoring which centres on the person not the disease.
This is a revised and expanded edtion of a classic in palliative medicine, originally published in 1991. With three added chapters and a new preface summarizing our progress in the area of pain management, this is a must-hve for those in palliative medicine and hospice care. The obligation of physicians to relieve human suffering stretches back into antiquity. But what exactly, is suffering? One patient with metastic cancer of the stomach, from which he knew he would shortly die, said he was not suffering. Another, someone who had been operated on for a mior problem--in little pain and not seemingly distressed--said that even coming into the hospital had been a source of pain and not sufferi...
Beyond drugs, beyond technology, there will always be the human element, the healer's art. Dr. Cassell discusses the world of the sick, the healing connection and healer's battle, the role of omnipotence in the healer's art, illness and disease, and overcoming the fear of death. Eric J. Cassell, M.D., is an internist and clinical director of the Program for the Study of Ethics and Values in Medicine at Cornell Medical School. His two-volume work Talking with Patients: The Theory of Doctor-Patient Communication, and Clinical Technique, is available from The MIT Press in cloth and paperback.
Spoken language is the most important diagnostic and therapeutic tool in medicine, and, according to Dr. Cassell, "we must be as precise with it as a surgeon with a scalpel." In these two volumes, he analyzes doctor-patient communication and shows how doctors can use language for the maximum benefit of their patients. Throughout, Dr. Cassell stresses that patients are complex, changing, psychological, social and physical beings whose illnesses are well represented by their own communication. He proposes that both listening and speaking are arts that can be learned best when they are based on the way that spoken language functions in medicine. Accordingly, Volume I focuses on the workings of ...
Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into h...
In this book, Eric Cassell explores what sickness is, what persons are, and how to understand function and its impairments. He explains healing skills and actions, as well as the nature of healing for sick and suffering patients. This book concludes with a discussion of the moral basis of the relationship between patient and healer. explores what sickness is, what persons are, and how to understand function and its impairments. He explains healing skills and actions, as well as the nature of healing for sick and suffering patients. This book concludes with a discussion of the moral basis of the relationship between patient and healer, as well as the goals of healing.
Are patients passive, or merely deferent? How does gender affect questioning and topic control in medical encounters? What does it sound like when physician and patient co-construct a diagnosis through storytelling? Nancy Ainsworth-Vaughn, a sociolinguist, ethnographer, and cancer survivor, answers questions such as these in a study of 100 medical encounters, with balanced numbers of men and women among physicians as well as patients. Ainsworth-Vaughn draws upon linguistics and medical ethics to develop a comprehensive theory of types of power. She engages critical problems in discourse theory, expanding our understanding of topic transitions, questions, ambiguity, and co-construction.
What happens to a profession that loses the memory of its moral independence? And what happens then to those reliant on its honor, its advocacy, its initiative? In an era of biotechnological adventure, medical audacity, ecological disruption, fiscal strain, and financial temptation, these are urgent questions for all life scientists and for all they serve. Profession of Conscience is an exposition, analysis, and application of a political-ethical tradition in, of, and for the life sciences, from molecular genetics to clinical medicine to environmental biology. The goal is avoidance of the fate of physics--the previous "super science"--whose technological transformations several generations a...
Surgery is the most martial and masculine of medical specialties. The combat with death is carried out in the operating room, where the intrepid surgeon challenges the forces of destruction and disease. What, then, if the surgeon is a woman? Anthropologist Joan Cassell enters this closely guarded arena to explore the work and lives of women practicing their craft in what is largely a man's world. Cassell observed thirty-three surgeons in five North American cities over the course of three years. We follow these women through their grueling days: racing through corridors to make rounds, perform operations, hold office hours, and teach residents. We hear them, in their own words, discuss their...
Collaborations of physicians and researchers with industry can provide valuable benefits to society, particularly in the translation of basic scientific discoveries to new therapies and products. Recent reports and news stories have, however, documented disturbing examples of relationships and practices that put at risk the integrity of medical research, the objectivity of professional education, the quality of patient care, the soundness of clinical practice guidelines, and the public's trust in medicine. Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice provides a comprehensive look at conflict of interest in medicine. It offers principles to inform the design of policies t...