Premium
Historical thinking in clinical medicine: lessons from R . G . C ollingwood's philosophy of history
Author(s) -
ChinYee Benjamin H.,
Upshur Ross E.G.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1111/jep.12344
Subject(s) - medicine , history of medicine , alternative medicine , engineering ethics , epistemology , medical education , psychology , philosophy , engineering , psychiatry , pathology
The aim of this article is to create a space for historical thinking in medical practice. To this end, we draw on the ideas of R . G . C ollingwood (1889–1943), the renowned B ritish philosopher of history, and explore the implications of his philosophy for clinical medicine. We show how C ollingwood's philosophy provides a compelling argument for the re‐centring of medical practice around the patient history as a means of restoring to the clinical encounter the human meaning that is too often lost in modern medicine. Furthermore, we examine how C ollingwood's historical thinking offers a patient‐centred epistemology and a more pluralistic concept of evidence that includes the qualitative, narrative evidence necessary for human understanding. We suggest that clinical medicine can benefit from C ollingwood's historical thinking, and, more generally, illustrates how a philosophy of medicine that draws on diverse sources from the humanities offers a richer, more empathetic clinical practice.