Arthur Kleinman's recent Perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine deserves a wide audience. Unfortunately, full access is open to only NEJM subscribers or those affiliated with academic institutions. If, after reading the following quotes, you want to read the entire article, please email me and I'll send you a copy.
picture from http://kennonsburgumc.com
"Modern medical practice's greatest challenge may be finding
a way to keep caregiving central to health care. The moral core of medicine may
seem abstract, until you see health professionals passionately struggling to be
useful, compassionate, responsive, and responsible while working with the indifference
of bureaucratic rules, the cold counting and costing of institutional audits,
and hard-to-balance personal demands on their time and concern.
Looking at medicine [as a caring vocation] reinforced my
belief that the structure and demands of medical schools and hospitals create
obstacles to caregiving. How to revivify caregiving in medicine became the
issue. Teaching about illness experiences remains important. Yet the
moral–emotional core of those experiences deserves greater primacy — as does
the social suffering that affects everyone, but especially marginalized people
already injured by poverty, isolation, and other forms of structural violence."
From Illness as Culture to Caregiving as Moral Experience
Arthur Kleinman, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2013; 368:1376-1377April 11
Dr. Rakesh Biswas alerted us to an article in the Stanford Medical Alumni Magazine about Kleniman and his work -- especially his recent epiphany. See: Medicine: A Love Story. The past few paragraphs are especially important.