Families' medical myths

A medical myth is defined as a false or distorted belief regarding issues of health within a family. This empirical study considers phenomenology, function and origins of medical myths operating in some forty families encountered in the author's psychiatric practice. Therapeutic strategies found useful in re-editing the myths are described. Implications for the family/medical professional relationship are discussed.     

From innocence to experience: Teaching medical ethics to medical students

The author describes the content and method of a course in medical ethics for second-year medical students. He discusses the clergyperson's role in teaching medical ethics in relationship to physicians and concludes with reflections upon the study of medical ethics as part of the rite of passage of medical education.     

Preparing children for medical examinations: the importance of previous medical experience

The relationship between past medical experience and children's response to preparation for medical examinations was investigated in 79 pediatric outpatients aged 3 to 12 years. Children were randomly assigned to one of five preparation conditions prior to receiving a medical examination and a throat culture: sensory information about the exam, training in coping skills (deep breathing and positive self-talk), combined sensory information and coping skills training, attention control, and no-treatment control. The results indicated that children with previous negative medical experiences demonstrated more behavioral distress during a throat culture examination that did children with previous positive or neutral medical experiences. In addition, the attention control condition appeared to increase the distress of children with previous negative medical experiences. Amount of past exposure to the specific medical procedure was not related to observed distress. The implications of these findings for the preparation of children for medical procedures are discussed.     

Religion and medical psychology

Summary The costly process of depersonalization underlies all living from which the individual must withhold his feeling of personal identity. Only my recognition of my self as creator of new selfness in my every experience continuously provides my self-consciousness (self-insight) the immediate recognition of my own intact autonomous wholeness.Responsible self-activity is conscious freedom. This comprehension of human unity is accessible to every devoted practitioner appreciating the full-measured meaning of individuality. Particularly since Hippocrates, who considered him-self of divine origin, every physician's medical ideal is: full respect for the idiosyncrasy of the individual.I close with a choice statement made by renowned Edward Glover, M.D., in the preface of his insightful work,An Investigation of the Technique of Psycho-Analysis, Periodic revision of technical principles is obviously essential for the good health of any science, and I look forward to a renewal of this investigation in the near future.     

Mutuality in medical services

While available to a multitude, routine health precautions and basic, nonspecialized medical services are lacking in many societies. This may in part be the outcome of attitudinal distortions, not only at the national and global levels, but fundamentally within the patient-physician encounter. Demands for a disturbance-free subsistence clash with values of power and control within health-care sub-systems resulting in an overall neglect of primary needs and a distribution of medical services that benefits select groups. True needs are misrepresented and an intensification of particular services does not fulfill one's duties toward those who realize little or no services at all. The entire institutional system of medicine requires a rebalancing of rights, intentions and outcomes, beginning with the correlative experiences of patient and physician.     

Rationing just medical care

U.S. politicians and policymakers have been preoccupied with how to pay for health care. Hardly any thought has been given to what should be paid for--as though health care is a commodity that needs no examination--or what health outcomes should receive priority in a just society, i.e., rationing. I present a rationing proposal, consistent with U.S. culture and traditions, that deals not with "health care," the terminology used in the current debate, but with the more modest and limited topic of medical care. Integral to this rationing proposal--which allows scope to individual choice and at the same time recognizes the interdependence of the individual and society--is a definition of a "decent minimum," the basic package of medical treatments everyone should have access to in a just society. I apply it to a specific example, diabetes mellitus, and track it through a person's life span.