Charity, ostensibly a central moral and social American institution, is alive and flourishing–online, on crowdfunding sites, as thousands and thousands of perfect strangers and sometimes acquaintances and friends and family, line up to donate to the latest plea for help. (Perhaps someone needs a vital organ transplant, extended chemotherapy and radiation, or a new, life-savingContinue reading “Crowdfunding As Socialized Healthcare”
Tag Archives: medicine
The Doctor And The Silenced Patient
In Confessions of a Medicine Man: An Essay in Popular Philosophy (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000, pp. 109-110) Alfred I. Tauber writes: Health care providers have to listen, respond, and generally account for the subjective experience of a patient’s complaint. So much of our discontent can be traced to the too little time the physician spendsContinue reading “The Doctor And The Silenced Patient”
Hail to the Mighty Nurse
When I was a mere nine years old, I underwent a tonsillectomy, a minor operation that surprisingly enough, in those days, required general anesthesia. My mother spent as much time as she could with me in the hospital, but my constant companions otherwise were the military hospital’s nurses. I might not have been a teenager, butContinue reading “Hail to the Mighty Nurse”
Taylorism and the Doctor’s Office
From this vantage, distant point in my life, childhood meetings with doctors, whether at home–they still made house calls–or whether in the doctor’s clinic, appear as encounters with quasi-avuncular figures, benevolent, mostly-solicitous contacts with a wise, ostensibly caring person. I experienced my share of childhood illnesses, suffered from minor ailments, and almost always looked forwardContinue reading “Taylorism and the Doctor’s Office”
Samir Chopra 