The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource]
Number of pages: 273
ISBN-13: 9780198021940; 9781602566262; 9781281346711
Subjects: Suffering; Physician-Patient Relations; Medicine; Physician and patient; Medical Philosophy; Chronic Disease
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 c.
Notes: Description based on print version record.
Table of contents: title: 1. Ideas in Conflict: The Rise and Fall of New Views of Disease; 2. The Changing Concept of the Ideal Physician; 3. The Nature of Suffering; 4. Suffering in Chronic Illness; 5. The Mysterious Relationship Between Doctor and Patient; 6. How To Understand Diseases; 7. The Pursuit of Disease or the Care of the Sick?; 8. Treating the Disease, the Body, or the Patient; 9. The Doctor and the Patient; 10. Who Is This Person?; 11. The Measure of the Person; 12. The Clinician's Experience: Power Versus Magic in Medicine; Epilogue: The Care of the Suffering Patient; Index;