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Interview Summation:
The science and practice of Medicine is overdue for serious review. Recent statistics in "iatrogenic illness" and trends in "disease" seem to indicate that what is happening in medicine is not exactly under the control of physicians.
There are philosophical, social and moral questions that need to be asked. For example, whether in diagnosis physicians are seriously interested in the cause of "disease" is questionable given the trend toward the treatment of symptoms as opposed to dealing with root causes. Although neither the condition of being "not sick" nor "symptom free" necessarily equals "health" let alone "well-being", little serious conceptual attention is paid to this issue. The evidence of this is that a positive concept of health doesn't seem to seriously affect diagnosis or treatment when the population as a whole is considered.
It seems also that the conflation of physician as scientist and physician as clinician has led to the notion that scientific results are more or less immediately applicable to the patient in the clinic, especially when such application takes the form
-of a -pill: - -Whereas doctor in-the Latin originally meant teacher it seems-that-this function of the physician in caring for the patient has receded into a far too distant background. Whereas physician as authority to be trusted is vital in clinical practice, physician as teacher to be learned from and even emulated needs to be looked at philosophically.
Given that the doctor-patient relation is an interactive affair, it seems that this relationship is to be encourage especially to avoid and to overcome the objectification of the patient. This relation is a moral relation requiring responsibility and respect from both sides. The doctor must teach the patient to be such. Today, given the state of medical practice, it seems also that the patient has been and must continue to teach the physician his side of the relationship.
The social conditions of medical practice today lead one to consider what the dynamics of this situation might be. It would not be unfair to compare the contemporary state of affairs to that of the "medic" at wartime. He must go out to the
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