Caring And Curing

A fascinating and enlightening overview of how religious values have come to affect the practice of medicine and medical care. Most religious traditions have a rich, if largely forgotten, heritage of involvement in medical issues of life, death, and health. Religious values influence our behavior and attitudes toward sickness, sexuality, and lifestyle, to say nothing of more controversial subjects such as abortion and euthanasia. The essays in this important book illuminate the history of health and medicine within the Judeo-Christian tradition. Bringing together 20 original articles by expert scholars in the fields of the history of religion and the history of medicine, Caring and Curing provides a fascinating and enlightening overview of how religious values have come to affect the practice of medicine and medical care.

This collection of essays takes the reader from the early 19th century struggle between female midwives and male physicians right up to the late 20th century emergence of professionally trained women physicians vying for a place in the medical hierarchy. The bitter conflict for control of birthing and other aspects of domestic health care between female lay healers, particularly midwives, and the emerging male-dominated medical profession is examined from new perspectives.

The fundamental mission of medicine is caring, and curing may be only one component of that broad mission A popular conception of medical care is that nurses care, physicians cure, and patients cope. The significant theme that runs throughout this volume is that the fundamental mission of medicine is caring, and curing may be only one component of that broad mission. Each of the chapters speaks to that theme, although each approaches it from a different perspective.

The philosophy of medicine has become a vibrant and complex intellectual landscape, and Care and Cure is the first extended attempt to map it. In pursuing the interdependent aims of caring and curing, medicine relies on concepts, theories, inferences, and policies that are often complicated and controversial. Bringing much-needed clarity to the interplay of these diverse problems, Jacob Stegenga describes the core philosophical controversies underlying medicine in this unrivaled introduction to the field. The fourteen chapters in Care and Cure present and discuss conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, and political questions that arise in medicine, buttressed with lively illustrative examples ranging from debates over the true nature of disease to the effectiveness of medical interventions and homeopathy. Poised to be the standard sourcebook for anyone seeking a comprehensive overview of the canonical concepts, current state, and cutting edge of this vital field, this concise introduction will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of medicine and philosophy.

This collection of essays takes the reader from the early 19th century struggle between female midwives and male physicians right up to the late 20th century emergence of professionally trained women physicians vying for a place in the medical hierarchy. The bitter conflict for control of birthing and other aspects of domestic health care between female lay healers, particularly midwives, and the emerging male-dominated medical profession is examined from new perspectives. Published in English.

Andy Lazris, MD, is a practicing primary care physician who experiences the effects of Medicare policy on a daily basis. As a result, he believes that the way we care for our elderly has taken a wrong turn and that Medicare is complicit in creating the very problems it seeks to solve. Aging is not a disease to be cured; it is a life stage to be lived. Lazris argues that aggressive treatments cannot change that fact but only get in the way and decrease quality of life. Unfortunately, Medicare’s payment structure and rules deprive the elderly of the chance to pursue less aggressive care, which often yields the most humane and effective results. Medicare encourages and will pay more readily for hospitalization than for palliative and home care. It encourages and pays for high-tech assaults on disease rather than for the primary care that can make a real difference in the lives of the elderly. Lazris offers straightforward solutions to ensure Medicare’s solvency through sensible cost-effective plans that do not restrict patient choice or negate the doctor-patient relationship. Using both data and personal stories, he shows how Medicare needs to change in structure and purpose as the population ages, the physician pool becomes more specialized, and new medical technology becomes available. Curing Medicare demonstrates which medical interventions (medicines, tests, procedures) work and which can be harmful in many common conditions in the elderly; the harms and benefits of hospitalization; the current culture of long-term care; and how Medicare often promotes care that is ineffective, expensive, and contrary to what many elderly patients and their families really want.

A ground-breaking new volume and the first of its kind to concisely outline and explicate the emerging field of whole person care process, Whole Person Care: A New Paradigm for the 21st Century organizes the disparate strains of literature on the topic. It does so by clarifying the concept of 'whole person' and also by outlining the challenges and opportunities that death anxiety poses to the practice of whole person care. Whole person care seeks to study, understand and promote the role of health care in relieving suffering and promoting healing in acute and chronic illness as a complement to the disease focus of biomedicine. The focus is on the whole person -- physical, emotional, social, and spiritual. Using concise, easy-to-read language, the early chapters offer practitioners a thorough understanding of the concepts, skills and tools necessary for the practice of whole person care from a clinician-patient interaction standpoint, while the last two chapters review the myriad implications of whole person care for medical practice. An invaluable resource for all areas of medical practice and for practitioners at all stages of development, from medical students to physicians and allied health providers with many years of experience, Whole Person Care: A New Paradigm for the 21st Century will have a profound impact on western medical practice in North America and elsewhere.