The Rhetoric of Medicine: Lessons on Professionalism from Ancient Greece

by Nigel Nicholson, Nathan Selden

Overview

The Rhetoric of Medicine explores problems that confront medical professionals today by first examining similar problems that confronted physicians in ancient Greece. This framework provides illuminating entry points into challenges faced by the practice of medicine, enabling readers to understand more clearly their shape and operation in the modern context-as well as their possible solutions. Topics covered include: larger cultural ideas about the body; tension between professional values and working for money; effective collaboration and competition with alternative healthcare providers; restrictions on political involvement that are part of a physician's identity; maintaining a space for professional autonomy and judgment; mentoring that is effective but not exclusive; and physicians' recognition of themselves as patients as well as professionals. A unique collaboration between a classicist and a neurosurgeon, The Rhetoric of Medicine is a call to interrogate the narratives and ideas that shape medical care and to revise and replace those that do not serve patient health.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190457488
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/14/2019
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Nigel Nicholson, PhD is the Walter Mintz Professor of Classics and Dean of the Faculty at Reed College in Portland, OR. His research focuses on ancient Greece, specifically Greek athletics, Greek Sicily and Italy, and Greek medicine. He is the author of Aristocracy and Athletics in Archaic and Classical Greece (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West (Oxford University Press, 2016), and also edited a special Paedagogus Section for Classical World in 2015 on Literary Theory in Graduate and Undergraduate Classics Curricula. He served as President of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest in 2006 and was named Oregon's Professor of the Year for 2005 by the Carnegie Foundation.

Nathan R. Selden, MD, PhD is Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery and holds the Mario and Edith Campagna Chair of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR. He is also Chair-elect of the OHSU Professional Board. In his clinical practice, he cares for children with complex brain and spinal disorders and performed the first surgical transplantation of neuronal stem cells in the world. He is currently Secretary of the Society of Neurological Surgeons and is past-President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. In 2013, he received the Parker-Palmer Courage to Teach Award from the U.S. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Body
Chapter 2: Money
Chapter 3: Competition
Chapter 4: Restriction
Chapter 5: Autonomy
Chapter 6: Mentoring
Chapter 7: Self
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"If we spend the time to dig deeply into the "rhetoric" of medicine over time, as the authors Nicholson and Selden have done, we find the motivations of early doctors, their foibles and how they perceived themselves. It is an incredibly rich story with lessons around money, competition and autonomy for doctors and for the patients they serve." —Sanjay Gupta, MD, Staff Neurosurgeon, The Emory Clinic, Atlanta, GA, Chief Medical Correspondent, CNN

"Nicholson and Selden offer a pioneering rejoinder to the persistent estrangement of classics and modern medicine. Acutely sensitive to cultural difference, the authors leverage the temporal and technological gulf between ancient Greek and modern American medicine to construct a nuanced and productive juxtaposition: by exposing the fault lines in the self-representation of ancient Greek doctors across an array of key issues, they generate new ways for the American physician to perceive and confront modern counterparts to these very tensions. This is a rare hybrid of a book that couples accessible but consummate expertise of the ancient material with concrete insights for practicing doctors." —Margaret Foster, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Classical Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

"In this remarkable and wise book, a noted scholar of Ancient Greece and a leading medical educator illuminate several themes that bind together the stories we have told one another across two thousand years of history; the rhetoric that shapes conflicting views of major economic, social, and ethical issues common to the experience of physicians and patients in the age of Hippocrates; and those that still bedevil us in the contemporary era of modern medicine and technology. Practicing physicians, hospital administrators, and those who teach humanistic courses in Narrative Medicine and History of Science are among the many who will find The Rhetoric of Medicine a critical text for promoting the wellness of today's doctors and their patients." —Michael Salcman, MD, Former Chair of Neurosurgery, University of Maryland, editor of Poetry in Medicine and special lecturer in the Osher Institute at Towson University, Towson, MD

"This unique and timely collaboration between a classicist and a physician re-connects cultural and rhetorical threads between ancient and modern medicine... There were good scientific reasons for medicine to modernize itself at the time, of course, but as this study shows, much was also lost in this wholesale break from its ancient tradition. By examining the rhetoric of Greek doctors as they contemplated (e.g., their relationship with patients, their own embodiment or their responsibilities as professional caregivers), Nicholson and Selden make a compelling case that medicine of our own time would benefit from a similarly self-conscious approach to how doctors talk about themselves and their profession... Within programs in medical humanities and bioethics in particular, this book will stand as a foundational landmark." —Ralph M. Rosen, PhD, Vartan Gregorian Professor of the Humanities, Professor of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

From the Publisher

Reviewer: Alain Touwaide, PhD (Ronin Institute)
Description: The question at the center of this book is simple: what does medicine (and its physicians) say about itself? In other words: how does medicine present and see itself in society? A simple, yet fundamental question that goes way beyond self-identity, but concerns the entire approach to medicine by its intended beneficiaries, the patients.
Purpose: This a collaboration of two authors: a specialist of the ancient world with an interest in the history of Greek medicine and a neurosurgeon on the forefront of cutting-edge medicine. Whereas the classicist extracts from ancient literature, his contemporary colleague reflects on whether these data might still be valid today. Interestingly enough, these data are organized around seven major (key) topics that say a lot about the self-perception of medicine (or, at least, about the perception of medicine by patients); body, money, competition, restriction, autonomy, mentoring, and self. These are the key aspects for an evaluation of medicine, and it is worth it, indeed, to assess them over the long term.
Audience: This is a much-needed book, although its audience might not be obvious. Of course, any consumer of medicine will be interested in understanding the way medicine positions itself. However, this is a complex question. Even though it is clearly articulated here around seven major themes, it might not be of direct use for any consumer of modern medicine. This is a reflexive book that requires a solid knowledge of medical history and a deep introspection into medicine. As a result, this might be a book for different readers: apprentice physicians, for whom it will be an inspiration, possibly a guide, and certainly a series of questions; but also physicians engaged in the profession who, at a certain point in their careers, wish to make an evaluation of their work, their contribution, and their impact in medicine and its interaction (or not) with society.
Features: Each chapter is built as a discourse (without being an actual discourse) with a detailed presentation of data coming from the ancient history of medicine and a response about present day situations. It is not an actual dialogue, but a comparison in terms of problems and solutions. It is more about equivalencies in the situations rather than about the exact elements it deals with. In the chapter on competition, for example, the part on ancient medicine is about rivalry among mentors, whereas in the modern era, it is about different forms of medicine (alternative medicine). Although this is a productive way to measure the long-term lifecycle of some problems, it also might be a way to avoid some of their aspects. Competition in terms of personal rivalry is present in the medical profession from medical school on.
Assessment: This is a book to be meditated on, even thought it might also be devoured with fascination. Nevertheless, it might (or should) be a companion to have during the life of a patient or of a health professional. It will require serious work (abundant notes, substantial bibliography, and a detailed index) to be fully assimilated, possibly requiring reading as some sort of homework rather than as entertaining reading.

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