Somewhere along the line of 3,000 years of medicine, the field lost its way. What started out as a deeply empathetic, philosophical, and almost religious practice has evolved into a system of bureaucracy and rushed appointments. The field of medicine is slowly becoming impersonal with mountains of paperwork replacing genuine human interaction. We must reflect.
Many institutions can provide a plethora of resources, exposure to various hospitals, and time with medical professionals. After all, these institutions are designed explicitly to create doctors of an acceptable caliber. Few institutions, however, seek to develop the healer in the doctor. Though medicine is a highly technical field with new procedures and medicine to be studied, it is a viscerally humane exercise. At the end of the day, medical professionals, especially D.O.s, must deal with the patient’s mind, body, and soul, together. This certainly cannot be done with a sterilized, objective mindset.
…show more content…
Dual Admission Program with IIT and Midwestern University represents is an opportunity to develop holistically. With IIT’s 10 principles and commitment to ‘building community and fostering diversity’, I will have the opportunity to learn from peers from incredible backgrounds, experiences, and views. These lessons will serve to mature my outlook on society and the complex problems which ail it. This exposure is also golden from a medical standpoint. As an aspiring D.O., I will be exposed to patients of various backgrounds and will use my training to pinpoint and explore the effects of various socioeconomic factors on lifestyles and health outcomes. By living and learning in such a diverse, tight-knit community, I will have the rare opportunity to enrich my mindset in the first four years
Accompanying with the enormous technological progress, medicine as a modern science has been affected in many positive ways. However, the timeless tradition and the everlasting secret of medicine is merely care giving. Modern medicine has been relying too much on technology, which is cool, but also very cold from a humanistic aspect. All the patients are presented by a series of numbers via binary signals of the internet. Nowadays, medicine is more about running tests and diagnosing based on numbers, as opposed to investigating symptoms upon the physician’s observational skills and comprehensive knowledge. As bedside caring becomes less concerned as it was in the old days, the diminishing of the sense of caring in medical professionals appears as a side effect. There is no doubt that technology enables medical professionals to perform all types of fancy tasks, though it is their offering of compassion that comforts the patients the most. And this quintessence of medical practice ought not to be overlooked at any point of the history of medicine.
At the start of my junior year, I began a two-year long research process involving spirituality in medicine and biomedical ethics because it is a subfield of medicine that I hope to contribute to proving that it can be an asset rather than an obstacle to overcome.The immense diversity of the religions present in the United States and other first-world nations have caused controversy with treatments in medicine, and with biomedical ethics still in its infancy, a majority of medical schools still fail to provide instruction in dealing with patient spirituality. Traditionally, physicians have been trained to safeguard patient health, but the modern world has both made this simultaneously increasingly simple and difficult. There have been many
As a diligent medical student, I extended my knowledge and curiosity from classroom to patient care. Being trained in a tertiary care charitable hospital, located at the city outskirts, I have had an exposure to a diverse patient population and a myriad of clinical cases that broadened my approach and sharpened my clinical acumen.
The Dual Enrollment program is a very rigorous and hard program, but I have the maturity that it takes to handle the program for many reasons. First of all, I am very organized with my work and make sure that I don’t have anything unfinished when work is due. I also make sure that my work is done with quality. Second of all, I am able to cope with the stress and work through any hard or challenging work. Last year, we did National History Day. It was very time consuming and stressful, but it gave me a taste of hard work. I put effort into the project and didn’t neglect it, even when I would rather have been doing other things. In the end, I had a finished project that was proud of and an experience that helped me learn in several ways. The
Evergreen summers to crisp, ivory winters with a community dedicated in promoting diversity in thought is the type of environment rare on college campuses in our modern age, but one I respect, and have found prevalent at Northwestern. With the BA/BS dual-degree program, not only will I be able to achieve academic success in biomedical engineering as I’ve wished for, but also be able to sustain my artistic pursuits, such as drawing and creative writing, and bloom into a more well-rounded student; being given the opportunity to double major in biomedical engineering and English, with an emphasis in writing, allows me to fuse both of my preoccupations into a singular pathway that, though seemingly disparate, cohesively merges through the need
Medicine is an expanding field that contains a variety of approaches to how it can be practiced. These ideals correspond to the Enlightenment in ways that help Doctor’s to think outside the box, further viewing a situation in a different light. This varying perspective
From the early nineteenth century until modern day, the practice of medicine has evolved from a state of health quackery into a field noted for its dynamic attitudes, scientific prowess, and true progressiveness. History affected the course of medical practice in an influential and prospering way. Conversely, the improvements of medicine have also had an effect on certain historical events. The cycle of medicine building the future and the future building how people treat medicine, has been a key descriptor in the twenty-first century, but finds its base in many Victorian era practices. Beyond the evolution of the various medical technologies that people take for granted today, there has also been a change in the ethics and morals embodied by today’s doctors—from Hippocrates and the symbolism behind the caduceus (the universal symbol for healthcare, a snake wrapped around a staff) to the more controversial works of today (Dr. Kevorkian or the studies into fetal stem cells). Regardless of which aspect of medicine, studied, there is a general trend towards a longer, more prosperous life, minimal intrusion by hospitals, and a pain free existence; together these characteristics seem to coalesce into the cornerstone of all medicine.
Various positions in the medical field desperately need reviving and filling, along with caring hearts to enable a new era of medicine. This permits a person to consider a great career that has numerous perks and a wonderful sense of giving back to the community. The rewards of being a part of the medical field go beyond a paycheck, and the inclination to help those who need medical attention. An opportunity to make a difference in a patient’s life comes in several forms and by various positions in the field. Amazing doctors, with great bedside manners, are always in high demand, and are crucial in selecting the correct treatment for a patient.
We like to think of medicine as a vast sea of knowledge, a science of certainty and applied research intended to heal and cure. Patients visit their doctors expecting to be diagnosed, prescribed, and treated. For several patients, this optimistic outlook is in fact the order of things. But, for many others, medicine is an experimental endeavor and very human in nature. Atul Gawande, in his collection of essays entitled Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, sheds light on this view of medicine as a field of possibilities and dead ends, improvements and failures. In spite of the many changes brought forth by medicine, the evolution of the patient and doctor relationship into one that redefines the role of the
However, the desire for community and meaningful relationships is a double-edged sword. In medicine, sickness and pain are unavoidable. As medical professionals, we strive to eliminate or minimize suffering as much as possible, but if suffering were nonexistent, our presence would be mute. This unfortunate reality poses a difficulty in pursuing a career
To each their own - as the saying so goes, and upon my own mantel I yearn to beseech the hearts of others through sheer generosity and nurturing of their ailments. Spanning back to my meager adolescence a perplexing compulsion has loomed over me with an omnipresent conviction. Wherein, I find myself affixed with the title of “the good guy”; a label that alludes to an individual who is beyond self-sacrificing, an individual who mends the gashes inflicted upon others, an individual who reflects upon himself with the utmost scrutiny. Ambiguous remarks aside, to my own becoming, I take strides to assert myself as a member of the vast medical field in some orientation. Consequently, this entails me pursuing a coarse path. One in which I must combat
The effective practice of medicine makes great demands on the physician. After reviewing the highly esteemed mission of Georgetown University School of Medicine, seventeen objectives, I considered to be trained by this institution because there are several objectives that I found them in a close relationship with my own ethical values and goals towards the medical profession. These are including an understanding of the psychological, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of human health and the ability to communicate effectively with patients. I believe that these can promote the complete development of a medical student, including academic, spiritual, and social awareness.
The medical profession has a lengthy history of pledging to a frame of ethical guidelines established predominantly for the value of the long-suffering (Pozgar, 2016). More importantly, being a participant of this line of work, a physician must identify his or her responsibility to those in need of care first and foremost, as well as to the public, to other health authorities, and to self. The American Medical Association implemented standards in which are more like a blueprint on what is considered noble conduct for a general practitioner (Pozgar, 2016).
The idea of treating people has enthralled me since childhood. This became my path when I had the chance to volunteer in a health camp conducted through an NGO, where I worked at the side of highly talented doctors. Fascinated by their knowledge, I aspired to be among them. When our clinical rotations began in 2nd year, I became naturally drawn to spending time in the medicine ward. Often arriving early in the mornings before general rounds, I would strive to elicit meticulous patient histories and perform exemplary clinical examinations. Watching how small changes in the presenting signs and symptoms could lead to different occurrence of various disease, I acquired immense interest in learning the concepts of disease pathology.
There are several difficulties in the medical field. A mistake while practicing in any other field would not carry such a burdensome effect because no other field is so closely connected to human well-being and life. However, a common misunderstanding of the medical field contributes to these difficulties and burdens. Medicine is often considered perfect and extraordinary by the patients and even future doctors. This is far from the truth, so the opposite needs to be accepted by society. The medical field, like any other field, requires constant research and improvement to deliver beneficial treatments to patients. But despite all the misunderstandings and difficulties in the medical field, Carola Eisenberg (1986) states, “What we do as doctors, most of the time, is deeply gratifying, whatever the mix of patient care, research, and teaching in our individual careers. I cannot imagine a more satisfying calling. Let us make sure out students hear that message from us”.