History of Medicine: Book Review
Jacalyn Duffin, a Canadian physician-historian-educator,
"blows the dust off the shelves of medical history" with this survey of the history of Western medicine.
"History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction", written from a decidedly Canadian perspective, is a medical history textbook that is well researched, logically organized, and chock-full of interesting and intriguing content and illustrations.[
Anne Ross Library Call No. R 31 .D783 1999]
One of the authors goals in writing this book was to spark the interest and imagination of the next generation of medical students and their educators. I found this textbook easy to digest in terms of assimilating the information presented of the people, places and events that shaped the history of Western medicine, but I discovered the real value of this treatise is in the wisdom that can be acquired by stepping away from the here and now and gaining that broader historical perspective. An understanding of where medicine has come from can only help young enthusiastic medical students to dispel their inherent generational tunnel vision, to find deeper meaning in today's medical practice, and to envision the future of medicine.
I highly recommend that all medical students set aside time to read this
"cultural history...of medical events". As the book is organized along the lines of a traditional medical school curriculum complete with learning objectives, students could read the chapters for each course as they embark on each new semester.
[ Published by the University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0-8020-7912-1, 1999. reprint 2004.]
For a more complete review of this title, I refer you to the annotation by
Audrey Shafer,
New York University School of Medicine.
Labels: Anne Ross Library, Epidemics, ethics, history of medicine, Hospitalization, Infectious Disease, Medical Advances, medical education, Medical Mistakes, medical research, War and Medicine, Women in Medicine
Diagnosing Death
No doubt many of you have heard the odd
'ghost story' involving nail scratch marks discovered on the inside lids of long occupied coffins. It seems when you are dead, you still may not have died yet? Now you can look to
BBC's Health reporter,
Anna-Marie Lever for incite into what may seem to those outside the medical profession or to even our novice medical students at UMHS, as probably the simplest diagnosis for a physician to make
~ diagnosing death. The article entitled
"How easy is it to diagnose death?" (BBC-Health column) questions that assumption.
The report cites various cases where patients were mistakenly declared dead or appear to have regained life, sometimes referred to as the
"Lazarus Syndrome". The question warrants further examination, especial by those students studying medical ethics this semester, as one quickly realizes the enormity of the medical, ethical and legal implications of a
misdiagnosis of death!
"Dr Daniel Sokol, a barrister and medical ethicist at Imperial College London, said: "The implications of confirming a person dead are enormous, and hence doctors have an ethical obligation to ensure that they 'diagnose' death with due care and skill."
Note the
Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) provides this definition:
ยง 1. [Determination of Death]. An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards.
Read the full article posted this morning (October 17, 2012) online at BBC News - Health. Labels: determining death, diagnosing death, diagnostic skills, ethics, medical diagnosis, medical ethics, medical student competencies, physical assessment, UMHS-SK courses
The Hastings Center offers the
'Bioethics Briefing Book', geared to journalists, policymakers, and campaigns, which contains
36 overviews of issues in bioethics that command high public interest.
Each chapter presents considerations from various perspectives, news stories, linked resources, and any recent legislation.
Labels: bioethics, ethics, medical ethics
Forthcoming book by
Linda Shields, professor of nursing at the University of Hull, reveals a dark side of the profession, illustrated in this disturbing archive film from the second world war showing a nurse helping a psychiatric patient to a gas chamber."
'Nursing can't move on unless it addresses its black side'article by
Chris Arnot of
The Guardian, London
Wednesday April 9, 2008
Click on the title to access the full article and watch the video.Labels: ethics, history of nursing, nursing research, Third Reich
