“First, do no harm”
In the medical field, we’re taught to live by a guiding principle of the Hippocratic Oath – “First, do no harm.” Somebody reminded me of this during a “War and Medicine” seminar taught by Claire Hooker here at the University of Sydney; during a discussion, one of the students mentioned that a physician in a war zone needs to take that principle into account when deciding whether or not it’s appropriate to treat a person on either side of the war. In other words, you may be peripherally doing harm by treating somebody who will then do harm, but you’re not doing harm by denying anybody treatment. As complicated of an argument as it is, it did get me thinking about the origins of the “First, do no harm” statement. Why does Hippocrates...
About the Blog
Soon after I started medical school, I found myself stuffing my mind into the proverbial box that I so detested in the past. I surprised even myself at how quickly I’d acquiesced to the stringent rules of the medical field as they attempted to execute a subtle Machiavellian attack on my hopes to continue my young writing career. Before long,...
“First, do no harm”
In the medical field, we’re taught to live by a guiding principle of the Hippocratic Oath – “First, do no harm.” Somebody reminded me of this during a “War and Medicine” seminar taught by Claire Hooker here at the University of Sydney; during a discussion, one of the students mentioned that a physician in a war zone...
If you like music, raise your left hand
Growing up as a lefty, I always took a keen interest in the multitude of ways in which that makes me different from a “normal” person. Aside from the obvious issues that are directly related to dexterity, left-handed people are also often set apart by the fact that the right sides of our brains are usually dominant, while right-handers...
From outside, looking in
Back in 1955, a sociologist named Howard Becker decided to spend some time observing medical students to see what he could learn. He published a formal study soon afterwards, but a particularly interesting result of his experience was a short essay that he published 38 years later. Although this was hardly the focus of the article, one of the most...
The Happiest Doctors I Know
Medicine is important; we all know that. On the other hand, doctors have a strikingly high suicide rate… and that shouldn’t surprise you if you’ve met many doctors or medical students. On the opposite end of the spectrum, however, were some of the doctors who I met at last Friday’s “passions outside medicine” symposium...
Healthcare “openness”?
Plenty of people have complained recently about how difficult it is to get “access” to healthcare. The meaning of the word “access” should be apparent from the context, but here’s an interesting story… Last night at about 11, my roommate (Mehdi) and I were walking by one of the back entrances to Royal Prince Alfred...
Medical sociolinguistics?
Recently, I’ve been thinking about what we can learn about cross-cultural views regarding medicine by studying the etymology of health-related words in different languages. Growing up in a fairly multicultural environment, I was often exposed to these sorts of parallels – words with similar meanings in English and Urdu often had completely...
Introduction
Years ago, when somebody asked me about my plans for the future, I would say “I’m planning on going to medical school.” I never said that I was planning to be a “doctor” – my goal was to be a “medical student.” A real medical career seemed to be eons away, so I figured that I’d just go one step at a time. If I could...