The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine

The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine PDF Author: Eric J. Cassell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199748004
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
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 suffering. With such varied responses to the problem of suffering, inevitable questions arise. Is it the doctor's responsibility to treat the disease or the patient? And what is the relationship between suffering and the goals of medicine? According to Dr. Eric Cassell, these are crucial questions, but unfortunately, have remained only queries void of adequate solutions. It is time for the sick person, Cassell believes, to be not merely an important concern for physicians but the central focus of medicine. With this in mind, Cassell argues for an understanding of what changes should be made in order to successfully treat the sick while alleviating suffering, and how to actually go about making these changes with the methods and training techniques firmly rooted in the doctor's relationship with the patient. Dr. Cassell offers an incisive critique of the approach of modern medicine. Drawing on a number of evocative patient narratives, he writes that the goal of medicine must be to treat an individual's suffering, and not just the disease. In addition, Cassell's thoughtful and incisive argument will appeal to psychologists and psychiatrists interested in the nature of pain and suffering.

The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine

The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine PDF Author: Eric J. Cassell Clinical Professor of Public Health Cornell University Medical College
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198021941
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Book Description
The Nature of Suffering underscores the change that is taking place in medicine from a basic concern with disease to a greater focus on the sick person. Cassell centers his discussion on the problem of suffering because, he says, its recognition and relief are a test of the adequacy of any system of medicine. He describes what suffering is and its relationship to the sick person: bodies do not suffer, people do. An exclusive concern with scientific knowledge of the body and disease, therefore, impedes an understanding of suffering and diminishes the care of the suffering patient. The growing criticism that medicine is not sufficiently humanistic does not go deep enough to provide a basis for a new understanding of medicine. New concepts in medicine must have their basis in its history and in the development of ideas about disease and treatment. Cassell uses many stories about patients to demonstrate that, despite the current dominance of science and technology, there can be no diagnosis, search for the cause of the patient's disease, prognostication, or treatment without consideration of the individual sick person. Recent trends in medicine and society, Cassell believes, show that it is time for the sick person to be not merely an important concern for physicians but the central focus of medicine. He addresses the exciting problems involved in such a shift. In this new medicine, doctors would have to know the person as well as they know the disease. What are persons, however, and how are doctors to comprehend them? The kinds of knowledge involved are varied, including values and aesthetics as well as science. In the process of knowing the experience of patient and doctor move to center stage. He believes that the exploration of the person will engage medicine in the 21st century just as understanding the body has occupied the last hundred years.

The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine

The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine PDF Author: Eric J. Cassell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199882649
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
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 suffering. With such varied responses to the problem of suffering, inevitable questions arise. Is it the doctor's responsibility to treat the disease or the patient? And what is the relationship between suffering and the goals of medicine? According to Dr. Eric Cassell, these are crucial questions, but unfortunately, have remained only queries void of adequate solutions. It is time for the sick person, Cassell believes, to be not merely an important concern for physicians but the central focus of medicine. With this in mind, Cassell argues for an understanding of what changes should be made in order to successfully treat the sick while alleviating suffering, and how to actually go about making these changes with the methods and training techniques firmly rooted in the doctor's relationship with the patient. Dr. Cassell offers an incisive critique of the approach of modern medicine. Drawing on a number of evocative patient narratives, he writes that the goal of medicine must be to treat an individual's suffering, and not just the disease. In addition, Cassell's thoughtful and incisive argument will appeal to psychologists and psychiatrists interested in the nature of pain and suffering.

The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Nursing

The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Nursing PDF Author: Betty R. Ferrell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190450428
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Book Description
The essence of nursing care continually exposes nurses to suffering. Although they bear witness to the suffering of others, their own suffering is less frequently exposed. This slim volume attempts to give voice to the suffering that nurses witness in patients, families, colleagues, and themselves. By making this suffering visible, the authors wish to honor it and to learn from it. The audience includes nurses in all phases of training and practice - from students to educators to clinicians - in the wide array of settings and specialties in which nurses care for patients. The book offers nurses' colleagues in other professions - social workers, psychologists, chaplains, ethicists, and physicians - a rare window onto what it means to practice nursing. Drs. Ferrell and Coyle are also the editors of Textbook of Palliative Nursing, 2nd ed (Oxford, 2006). Independently, they have worked more than 50 years in oncology nursing, caring for patients and working to improve the quality of care that patients receive.

Suffering in Theology and Medical Ethics

Suffering in Theology and Medical Ethics PDF Author: Christof Mandry
Publisher: Brill U Schoningh
ISBN: 9783506715425
Category :
Languages : de
Pages : 244

Book Description
Medicine, ethics, and theology embrace various ideas and concepts regarding human suffering - ranging from pain, suffering from loneliness, a lack of meaning or finitude, to a religious understanding of suffering, grounded in a suffering and compassionate God. In the practices of clinical medical ethics and health care chaplaincy, these diverse concepts overlap. What kind of conflicts arise from different concepts in patient care and counseling, and how should they be dealt with in a reflective way? Fostering international interdisciplinary scientific conversations, the book aims to deepen the discussion in medical ethics concerning the understanding of suffering, and the caring and counseling of patients.

The Goals of Medicine

The Goals of Medicine PDF Author: Mark J. Hanson
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 0878408452
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
Debates over health care have focused for so long on economics that the proper goals for medicine seem to be taken for granted; yet problems in health care stem as much from a lack of agreement about the goals and priorities of medicine as from the way systems function. This book asks basic questions about the purposes and ends of medicine and shows that the answers have practical implications for future health care delivery, medical research, and the education of medical students. The Hastings Center coordinated teams of physicians, nurses, public health experts, philosophers, theologians, politicians, health care administrators, social workers, and lawyers in fourteen countries to explore these issues. In this volume, they articulate four basic goals of medicine -- prevention of disease, relief of suffering, care of the ill, and avoidance of premature death -- and examine them in light of the cultural, political, and economic pressures under which medicine functions. In reporting these findings, the contributors touch on a wide range of diverse issues such as genetic technology, Chinese medicine, care of the elderly, and prevention and public health. The Goals of Medicine clearly demonstrates the importance of clarifying the purposes of medicine before attempting to change the economic and organizational systems. It warns that without such examination, any reform efforts may be fruitless.

The Culture of Pain

The Culture of Pain PDF Author: David B. Morris
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520913820
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
This is a book about the meanings we make out of pain. The greatest surprise I encountered in discussing this topic over the past ten years was the consistency with which I was asked a single unvarying question: Are you writing about physical pain or mental pain? The overwhelming consistency of this response convinces me that modern culture rests upon and underlying belief so strong that it grips us with the force of a founding myth. Call it the Myth of Two Pains. We live in an era when many people believe--as a basic, unexamined foundation of thought--that pain comes divided into separate types: physical and mental. These two types of pain, so the myth goes, are as different as land and sea. You feel physical pain if your arm breaks, and you feel mental pain if your heart breaks. Between these two different events we seem to imagine a gulf so wide and deep that it might as well be filled by a sea that is impossible to navigate.

Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine

Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine PDF Author: Thomas Schramme
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9789401786874
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This is the first wide-ranging, multi-authored handbook in the field of philosophy of medicine, covering the underlying conceptual issues of many important social, political and ethical issues in health care. It introduces and develops over 70 topics, concepts, and issues in the field. It is written by distinguished specialists from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, health sciences, nursing, sociology, political theory, and medicine. Many difficult social and ethical issues in health care are based on conceptual problems, most prominently on the definitions of health and disease, or on epistemological issues regarding causality or diagnosis. Philosophy is the discipline that deals with such conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, methodological, and axiological matters. This handbook covers all the central concepts in medicine, such as ageing, death, disease, mental disorder, and well-being. It is an invaluable source for laypeople, academics with an interest in medicine, and health care specialists who want be informed and up to date with the relevant discussions. The text also advances these debates and will set the agenda for years to come.

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics at the End of Life

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics at the End of Life PDF Author: Stuart J. Youngner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199974411
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 489

Book Description
This handbook explores the topic of death and dying from the late twentieth to the early twenty-first centuries, with particular emphasis on the United States. The chapters examine a range of ethical topics related to death, dying, palliative care and decision-making at the end of life.
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