This is more of a moral issue than a religious issue (although they are one in the same I suppose) but I see this behavior frequently. How can hospitals and other health care facilities promote an atmosphere in which doctors and other health care providers see and treat the PERSON and not just illnesses or diseases?
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WE matter as a person
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ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
What do you mean? If a person comes in with cancer, what does "treating the person" mean in that context?
Bedside manner, placebo effect.
It is of substantial benefit (and can be pretty cheap).
Alternative medicine is almost all placebo, and no medicine.
Evidence based medicine is almost all medicine, and very little placebo.
Given the power of the placebo effect (not as powerful as real medicine for everything, but for some conditions it's close), it does make sense to use both of them, it just isn't done these days.
We need to study the placebo effect itself- find out what works and what doesn't; what the best practices are, what the best words are, tone of voice, down to every last detail of environment and doctor/nurse patient interaction, even down to the colour, shape, taste and smell of the medicine itself.
We flavour it and make it pretty, but sometimes nasty, ugly looking things that smell bad have a more potent placebo effect. What if the medicine glowed? What if it fizzed?
Chanting, meditation, etc. These things can all be very powerful placebos.
Without losing perspective (and actually buying into the efficacy beyond the placebo effect), we need to put some of those things into practice.
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
Talk about precious. People don't spend years at medical school so they can learn how to whisper sweet nothings into someones ear, and nor should they.
No, they should probably be specially trained actors/nurses; charismatic, with good showmanship. Making dry ice go "Poof!" in hot water, and mixing vinegar and baking soda.
The actual doctor could be behind the curtain writing prescriptions.
Actually, what the question is asking is what are the moral claims upon us in crucial medical situations in which some decisions must be made about how to show repect for, protect, preserve, and honor the life of our fellow man? Basically the medical covenants among men where medical ethis are concerned and how we should care for them.
How do you suppose doctors do that?
Those principles are already pretty well established in medical ethics, and I don't have any severe issues with them as they stand.
Informed consent. Respecting the wishes of the patient.
One guestion for you guys discussing the Placebo effect. Couldn't what you call the Placebo effect sometimes be something real, like the grace of God, saintly intervention, a healer's energy, etc..?
HerDotness
Lady Babbleon
What evidence do we have that puts any of those on the same level of reality as surgery, medication, and the like?
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
DO's are an answer to that. Doc with a smile as opposed to sterile bedside mannerisms.
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
It could be, but it's not affected by prayer, the skill of the healer, or the patient's belief in saints. It seems to work on everyone more or less equally.
(From what I remember, someone did a study for whether prayer had an effect, and only got a very small result, which he wasn't sure was statistically significant. Slightly worryingly, the result was negative; prayer made the problem worse.)
I believe that it was:
When people didn't know about the prayer: No effect.
When people did know that they were being prayed for: Slight negative effect.
They are on different levels of reality but still real
Well the study I heard concluded prayer had a positive effect even if the person prayed for wasn't aware that he was prayed for. Of course any study with a pro-paranormal conclusion gets attacked rightly or wrongly by the hard-line skeptical community. So these things seem to always remain controversial.
It's generally preferable to be a nice and sociable person.
But all I care about in terms of a doctor is their competency at medicine, surgery, or whatever their specialty happens to be. All else is secondary to me.
If it were the case that emotional support were helpful, then that would be a good job for family and friends to take care of.
It doesn't seem to be very equal for everyone at all, actually. Certain people are far more likely to be influenced by suggestion (whether it be hypnosis or a doctor telling them a sugar pill is real and WILL work). In fact, in drug trials (at least in psychiatric drug trials) they do "placebo-washouts" in which those who are most prone to the "placebo effect" are removed from the trial. A major etiological theory of dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder) relies on the observation that the power of suggestion for many can have quite extreme effects compared to the general population. This theory (the sociocognitive model) holds that DID results not from a distinct neurological condition but the power of suggestion (from the media, the doctors, etc.).