Our Wound Is The Wound @medicinalhorse - Tumblr Blog

I am being taught about homunculus for the first time, properly, and so without fanfare I have remembered medicinal horse and why I need her

#brain geography

At first I thought it said RACIZM but then I realised it said XRCIZM

#better

A very good and beautiful place, where a landslide formed a natural dam c 1952 and the trees died but didn't give up completely

#lake Elizabeth

Monumental blood type findings

#everybody wants to be a rare blood type #I'm just glad to have a blood type

Recurring dreams where I'm in control and telling each person in my family that what happened was wrong, over and over again

#be your own psychologist if you can't afford to see one

Becoming bark, Friday’s texture waiting in a park, freezing

So today a peer shared this article and mentioned that he ‘vehemently opposes’ the ideas put forth but wished to generate discussion... Obviously heavily biased towards postmodern frameworks in general, but really! How amazing these authors published such a critique of the hegemony of science... I’m very interested in the shift the field of medicine has undergone over the past century and how postmodern factors come into play when we consider the shift from paternalism to patient prioritised care. My first thoughts are that the breakdown of the notion of a single, universal truth and of the ‘grand metanarratives’ that govern the field has had a very significant effect. Not only on how medicine is practiced but how the patient navigates their way through the health care system (clearly linked to changes in doctor’s behaviour and in institutional changes).

The notion of the doctor being an impenetrable ‘moral and intellectual authority’ on disease is no longer compatible with our concept of patient centred care. As such, patients are more free to bring their own ideas of disease to a consultation (of which changing modes of education, particularly technology and availability of information on the internet, has facilitated).

To me, these changes are beginning to allow patients to feel more comfortable and have their needs prioritised in the health care system. I take the Holmes article in this light - it is less of a critique of evidence based medicine as I understand it, and more of an argument in favour of allowing a plethora of ideas and values to influence medicine, instead of a single, institutional hierarchy. Evidence based medicine is clearly very important in a clinical context and in terms of ensuring that treatments are safe, efficient and work for patients. But every treatment, every consultation needs to be guided by the individual patient’s context, which in turn is shaped by their truth, shaped by their social milieu...

#postmodern medicine #evidence based medicine

'Since we can’t always read the suffering of our colleagues, humanity in all our professional dealings and concern and compassion for every colleague must be a priority. As well as this, a healthy dose of introspection about how we judge doctors with a mental illness and why we judge them differently, arguably more poorly, than our patients.' And yet it is also clear from day one of med school that 'doctors are judged at a higher standard' (exact quote on a slide from the head of school on our first day) and to think carefully about what this means. To me, it means feeling uncomfortable about the image I am 'supposed' to project, about what I eat, how I talk, if my tattoo is visible or not.

#mental health #medicine #doctor suicide