George's Marvellous Medicine

Dr. Vincent Lam is a profound Canadian physician and writer. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures is his award winning novel that speaks on the reality of what it’s actually like to be in medical school aiming to be apart of a medical profession and the difficult expectations students must face while still managing to stay sane during those challenging years of their lives. It’s a collection of short stories partly based off of his experiences in the medical field, following the lives of fictional characters Ming, Fitzgerald, Chen, and Sri as they endure medical school and later work as doctors. Dr. Lam does a remarkable job at incorporating unique and compelling characters with intriguing storylines who face common and extraordinary moral dilemmas that seem to shape their overall characters. Lam introduces themes of love, fear, tradition, drugs, death, self doubt, duality, etc.

Selzer’s The Exact Location of the Soul captures the essence of being a physician by using first person point of view, a series of personal anecdotes, and such striking imagery.

As Beneatha describes the profound moment when she decided to become a doctor, her admirable, although childlike, determination and refusal to set limits on her future is illustrated. Beneatha says while discussing her dream, “...that was what one person could do for another, fix him up-sew up the problem, make him alright again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world...I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know - and make them whole again. This was truly being God…” (131). As Beneatha describes her dream with conviction, it is apparent how the decision to pursue her dream was created with faith in the practice, unconcerned with the efforts

First, _________________________________. Throughout the entire novel, he recounts a plethora of personal medical experiences derived from his ears surrounded by and immersed in surgery. Furthermore, he clearly lays down his credibility towards the beginning of the novel by stating, “I am a surgical resident, very nearly at the end of my eight years of training in general surgery… At other times I have been a laboratory scientist, a public health researcher, a student of philosophy and ethics, and a health policy adviser in government. I am also a son of two doctors” (Gawande 7). By stating his expansive experiences, people are more adept to agree with his displayed views later in the writing. Medicine is a controversial topic, and introducing these past experiences plays a critical role in

For as long as I could remember, I have seen my father rushing to the hospital in a white coat, answering pagers in the middle of important family conversations and attending night calls even in the most terrible weather. I had always wondered; what could be so important that it belittles every other responsibility in his life. It was only after many years of anguish and protests that it finally made sense to me. This defining moment of realization occurred when I first met a patient in his office. I saw how the gratitude in the patient’s eyes can provide a sense of fulfillment that triumphs all other feelings in the universe. It was human life that was most important. Being a doctor does not make you a mere healer but also gives you the responsibility of a caregiver. I had never felt more proud of my father and that was the day I felt the urge to relive this feeling many times over. It was there in that moment that I decided to pursue a career in medicine.

In this day and age, there are millions of pharmaceuticals out there for all kinds of diseases and conditions, but where did all of this start? The creation of medicines most likely started when people discovered the healing properties plants contained. Today, mankind has the knowledge and technology to extract elements from plants to produce more chemically engineered medicines. The real question is how did medicines develop from mashing up leaves in order to lessen an infuriating rash to just popping a pill to nurse or illness? Medicines evolved by the scientific method: series of research and experiments. During the Elizabethan era, research and experimentation attained a renewed interest.

George is the type of person who is temperamental and combative, but also very compassionate. He is also extremely insensitive to Lennie’s mental disability which allows his aggravation get a hold on him. One of George’s imperfections is he does not have much tolerance with Lennie. One example of this in the book is in the beginning of the novel when George and Lennie were going to the

When George turned 11 his father passed away. After his father passed away, he went to live with his older step brother, Lawrence. Had George’s father lived for more years he would have attended a nice school in England. Instead he went to decent school near Fredericksburg and he had tutors to help him get through school.

A doctor’s mind and heart are very much involved in the patient’s road to recovery. Evidence in support of this statement is shown in William Carlos William poem “ The Red Wheelbarrow, and his essay “The Practice.” Also, in Jack Coulehan poems “The Man with Stars Inside Him, The Six Hundred Pound Man,” and the article “What’s a good doctor and how do you make one?” Individually, each reading and poem has expressed doctor’s emotions with their patients, and what characteristics have guided them into becoming a good doctor. The readings are a representation of how doctors are in fact remorseful when it comes to their patients. While reading these articles, I realize that doctors have been restricted to how much emotion they are allowed to show. All doctors have their weaknesses and their strengths, and they should be vocal about them especially when it comes to treating their patients.

The development of George affects the family as a whole. First, George, Rameck and Sam decide to listen to a recruiter from Seton Hall University giving a presentation in the library because they don’t feel like stay in the class when their teacher told that they could decide to leave or stay. They were goofing off and half listening. The recruiter said that Seton Hall was dedicated to train students to enter medicine as the doctor through a program that gives free tutoring, counseling and other support. The EOP(Educational Opportunity Program) was designed to make higher education for poor students who have the ability to succeed in college. “I could hardly believe my ears. I thought to myself: Free college. Free tutoring. Help getting into

This film offers the public an important piece of medical history through the telling of Thomas’ achievements in a way that is thought-provoking. Also, the social issues it raises, for example the relationship

A physician must be well rounded in a variety of fields to provide effective care. First, an interest in learning scientific knowledge must be accompanied by the ability to translate that knowledge into methods of treatment. Because science is constantly changing and improving, a physician should be continuously expanding their scientific learning within and outside of their respective fields. Most of the coursework that I have taken reflects my interest in the intersection between biomedical science and its applications through an anthropological lens. For example, I have performed public

ADHD, defiance disorder, pregnancy, these are just few of the things medicalized in the West (Davies 1995). With the rising prestige of Doctors in the 19th century, came a widening of the gap of knowledge between Doctors and the general population (Davies 1995). Doctors have kept a sort of lock on medical knowledge, enabling them to medicalize all sorts of “issues” aided by the idea of the medical mystique. But with the emergence of medicalization and cures that are being searched for by Doctors, a new problem has arisen. This fixation on curing illnesses has led to Doctors viewing patients as experiments and not as human beings, this is seen especially in technologically advanced societies as exemplified in the movie Wit. In addition to this new problem, there are clear establishments of hierarchy between medical professionals such as Doctors and nurses as well as the emotional detachments with the patients which can lead to patients feeling left out and alone.

As the story progresses the reader is told that George has to work the fields because he’s the oldest, while his younger brothers and sisters get to go to school and learn to read and write. George lives a life of working very hard and getting paid very little but his motto is:

The doctor-patient relationship always has been and will remain an essential basis of care, in which high quality information is gathered and procedures are made as well as provided. This relationship is a critical foundation to medical ethics that all doctors should attempt to follow and live by. Patients must also have confidence in their physicians to trust the solutions and work around created to counter act certain illnesses and disease. Doctor-patient relationships can directly be observed in both the stories and poems of Dr. William Carlos Williams as well as in the clinical tales of Dr. Oliver Sacks. Both of these doctors have very similar and diverse relationships with multiple patients