Reviews for The physician's covenant

The average rating for The physician's covenant based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-07-19 00:00:00 Bruce Mcdowell William May's, "The Physician's Covenant," should be a contemporary classic in medical ethics. Published in 1983, it remains relevant today. May argues that images of the medical practitioner are often more powerful in our culture than mere descriptive labels, and I agree. Metaphors, images, and myths structure our reality whether or not we admit it. May examines various images of the physician: parent, fighter, technician, and teacher, and finds truth in all of them, though they are misleading if taken to be the whole of what a physician should be. He focuses on the Biblical idea of "covenant" as being the proper model for the patient-physician relationship. This model goes beyond the technical contractual model, and in it both physician and patient have mutual responsibilities to one another. The physician is also bound by the covenant to care about patients who are less fortunate or who cannot afford treatment. Today, doctors need a model that goes beyond the technical traps of contemporary managed care. May's model should be taken seriously as an alternative to a dehumanizing system that refuses to treat the individual patient as person but more as a cog in a machine. Covenants are between persons, and if medicine recognizes this, it will perform its duty of caring for the patient in need in a more effective, yet more compassionate, way.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-08-09 00:00:00 Pablo Hernandez Pretty interesting, especially in these covid days. Author takes historical look at how religion (primarily Christian) has approached illness since early medieval days. He looks at "lovesickness" which is not really clear as to what illness that was, perhaps depression or other mental illness, or just a handy term for any non infectious illness. Also, leprosy, syphilis, plague, masturbation, and AIDS. Well, as you might imagine from the title, the church is not very helpful, and basically, even now, regards illness as god's judgment upon a sinner. As the world has become more secular, it has gotten better, but the aids fights of the 80's definitely show the power the established Christian church hierarchies still hold. Of course, across all times and places, there were deeply religious folks who acted with kindness and compassion towards the ill. Sadly, those seem to be more the exception than the rule - and it seems that generally church bureaucracies were generally not compassionate and much more interested in self preservation than rendering service. Other general observations, throughout 2020 (and now 2021) I hear well meaning folks stating things like the Christian supporters of Donald Trump and other right wingers are not "truly" Christian. Well, when you look at the overwhelming history of the church, the MAGA folks are acting just as eons of historical Christians have. That is who they are. Condemning and judgmental, and always trying to enforce their beliefs on others. Second, many liberals seem to say things like we just need to wait for this group of old racist white folks to die, and then things will get better. (Think Mitch McConnell for example) Well, as I read the AIDS chapter in this book, lots of old white republican politicians names came up. Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell (the elder), Jesse Helms amongst others. These guys from the 1980's are dead or very near to it. Yet, nothing changed, they have been replaced by others with similar beliefs. Simply waiting them out is not going to effect change.