学进去

As medical science develops rapidly with new technology, what is left for the doctor to do?

For medical humanist Dr. Abraham Verghese, the answer is simple: Spend more time getting to know your patients as people. Take the time to read a poem and other literature. Do your part to bridge the gap (鸿沟) between the two cultures of science and the humanities.

It takes a doctor who knows a patient’s life history well to make the best use of these tools, Verghese said. And that means paying more attention to human character.

Verghese said machines “have gone beyond human beings in their ability to care for the patient,” that is, in diagnosing illnesses and indicating the best treatment.

But doctors can awaken the human spirit, the knowledge of human beings and their motivations (动机), which can pull together a life picture of a patient and understand them as more than a collection of symptoms.

Case history: A 64-year-old man was admitted to the hospital after repeated falls, pains, and the loss of two teeth that just fell out, with no obvious cause.

What was wrong? Was it his medicine? Was it alcohol abuse (酗酒)?

The man rapidly improved after being hospitalized. It turned out he had bachelor scurvy, a disease among older men who live alone, which results from a lack of nutrition (缺乏营养).

“He was surviving on no fruits or vegetables, just alcohol and processed meats, I would guess,” Verghese said. “My point here is that this diagnosis, as clever as it was, also might have been made much, much earlier had we had a good relationship with this patient and had some sense of who that person was, as an individual.”