The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine - Softcover

Cassell, Eric J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019508912X ISBN 13: 9780195089127

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1994

Synopsis

The Nature of Suffering underscores the change that is taking place in medicine from a basic concern with disease to a greater focus on the sick person. Cassell centers his discussion on the problem of suffering because, he says, its recognition and relief are a test of the adequacy of any system of medicine. He describes what suffering is and its relationship to the sick person: bodies do not suffer, people do. An exclusive concern with scientific knowledge of the body and disease, therefore, impedes an understanding of suffering and diminishes the care of the suffering patient.
The growing criticism that medicine is not sufficiently humanistic does not go deep enough to provide a basis for a new understanding of medicine. New concepts in medicine must have their basis in its history and in the development of ideas about disease and treatment. Cassell uses many stories about patients to demonstrate that, despite the current dominance of science and technology, there can be no diagnosis, search for the cause of the patient's disease, prognostication, or treatment without consideration of the individual sick person. Recent trends in medicine and society, Cassell believes, show that it is time for the sick person to be not merely an important concern for physicians but the central focus of medicine. He addresses the exciting problems involved in such a shift. In this new medicine, doctors would have to know the person as well as they know the disease. What are persons, however, and how are doctors to comprehend them? The kinds of knowledge involved are varied, including values and aesthetics as well as science. In the process of knowing the experience of patient and doctor move to center stage. He believes that the exploration of the person will engage medicine in the 21st century just as understanding the body has occupied the last hundred years.

About this title

About the Author:

Eric J. Cassell is Clinical Professor of Public Health at Cornell University Medical College, and an attending physician at The New York Hospital. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center and a member of the Institute of Medicine of The National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of The Healer's Art, The Place of Humanities in Medicine, and Talking with Patients.

Review:

"[A] thoughtful, historical book....Offers hiope that by reexamining physicians' habits of thinking, being, and doing, the discipline of medicine will focus on ill people rather than diseases, thereby dissolving the boundary between cure and care."--Diane Hamilton, Ph.D., RN, School of
Nursing, University of Rochester

"Well written. . .should be read by everyone in medical practice or considering a career in medicine." --JAMA

"[An] important new book. . . .Cassell's rich book is filled with telling anecdotes. . . .A timely and necessary challenge to our definition of medicine and our self-definition as medical practitioners interested in the relief of pain and suffering." --APS Bulletin

"Memorable passages, important ideas, and critical analysis. This is a book that clinicians and educators should read to understand better how the scientific and personal parts of medicine meet in the relationship between a doctor and a patient." --New England Journal of Medicine

"Compelling and persuasive. . . .Cassell has set about a task that is vital to the achievement of goals for medicine and medical education that he, along with most people in the medical humanities, are striving to achieve." --Medical Humanities Review

"This is a valuable book. Readers will be rewarded with a wonderful text that represents a superb addition to the growing body of literature on the biopsychosocial model of disease and a cogent argument for more meaningful physician-patient relationships." --Journal of General Internal
Medicine

"Memorable passages, important ideas, and critical analysis. This is a book that clinicians and educators should read to understand better how the scientific and personal parts of medicine meet in the relationship between a doctor and a patient." --New England Journal of Medicine

"This is a valuable book. Readers will be rewarded with a wonderful text that represents a superb addition to the growing body of literature on the biopsychosocial model of disease and a cogent argument for more meaningful physician-patient relationships." --Journal of General Internal
Medicine

"This is a marvelous book by a very caring physician who has devoted a substantial part of his life to understanding suffering in the context of the history of medicine and the best current concepts of treatment of the patient. It is a superb resource for those directly involved in the
primary care of individuals who are suffering from acute and chronic illnesses. It is interesting material for psychiatrists, psychologists, and others interested in behavioral aspects of medicine. It also may be an interesting and helpful resource for individuals who themselves are
suffering.--American Journal of Psychiatry

"A rich explication of the physician-patient relationship. This book is a treasure and should be obligatory reading for every physician, certainly for every medical student." --Ian Shenk, MD (Georgetown Univ School of Medicine/Fairfax Hospital), The Journal of Clinical Ethics

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 019508912X
• ISBN 13: 9780195089127
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272