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The Ethics of an Ordinary Doctor
Author(s) -
Branch William T.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
hastings center report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1552-146X
pISSN - 0093-0334
DOI - 10.1002/hast.250
Subject(s) - certainty , humanism , pinnacle , odds , psychology , social psychology , medicine , law , epistemology , political science , philosophy , surgery , logistic regression , radiation treatment planning , radiation therapy
I served as a medical student and resident in the 1960s. Science as a belief system had reached a pinnacle. Yet Not infrequently in those days, I found myself caring, with little available backup, for a hospital ward filled with sick and dying people. It was a lonely and often frightening responsibility. I began to encounter situations that were at odds with our collective certainty that science would provide the answers. Some of these memories I repressed for almost a decade. I was unable to process them until I had personally experienced a more humanistic side of medicine .