Excerpts from the article by James Giordano: Foni
phronimos – An Interview with Edmund Pellegrino. Philosophy, Ethics, and
Humanities in Medicine 2010, 5:16
Concerning the importance of Medical Humanities.
“Medicine
is the most scientific of the humanities and the most humane of sciences. It
bridges the physical state of the human being with her psychological state, and
I daresay with her spiritual state – however we define that to be. That is not
just a person’s religion, but those transcendent aspects of what she is – and values
– beyond the merely material domains of being.”
“Biotechnology
cannot substitute for moral and ethical reflection. That is why I believe that
Aristotle, Aquinas or Augustine will not – and should not – fade from our view.”
What should we study?
“It is
important that the physician be well trained in liberal arts. (…) those arts
that free our minds from the tyranny of other minds. To do this requires
critical thinking. A differential diagnosis in medicine in an exercise of
dialectics.”
“The idea of prudence is classical; as is the
idea of dialectics. These ideas have origins in Aristotle’s posterior analytics.
So, the point is not that science is unimportant to the physician. Equal time
should be dedicated to the emphasis on how to think about, evaluate and make
prudent decisions because most clinical choices are made without the certainty
of having all the facts, without knowing what the future is going to hold, and
having to weight one thing against another and arrive at what at this moment
concretely represents the right thing and good decision for a particular
patient.”
Original Article available at: https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341-5-16
