Article (Mirabilia Medicinæ)
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Bioethics in the process of medicine's humanization: an interdisciplinary approach
Euler Renato WESTPHAL
Original title: A Bioética no processo de humanização da medicina: uma abordagem interdisciplinar
Published in
Keywords: Bioethics, Humanization, Interdisciplinarity, Medical Education, Theology.
This essay presents the discussion about humanization in the education of the physicians. This humanization has been necessary because the human being has been included in the contemporary notion of science, which reduced reality to its mechanical aspects. Bioethics in its origins was meaningfully influenced by theology, which had the function of connecting science and healthcare. In search for the rescue of interdisciplinarity in medical schools, the goal is to overcome the dichotomized and segmented model of modern sciences. Theology could be a bridge between the humanization in medical education and the care of the patient in the face of death. The objective is to demonstrate temporarily the manner how interdisciplinarity among bioethics, theology and medical education could propel humanization in medicine.
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The Use of Eponyms in Medical Practice
Fleury Marinho da SILVA, Rodolfo Costa SYLVESTRE, José Guilherme Pinheiro PIRES
Original title: O Uso de Epônimos na Prática Médica
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Keywords: Eponyms, Medical Education, Medical Humanities, Terminology.
An eponym is a medical term derived from a person’s name, either real or fictitious. Several authors that stand against the use of eponyms in Biology or Medicine argue that the practice is anti-didactic because it is impossible to memorize over ten thousand existing eponyms, the same eponym may designate two different biomedical entities, or the eponyms can render tribute to infamous physicians. However, there are authors who support their use and describe that its practice is a medical art, reflecting the medical history over the years. For them, the use of eponyms is a correct attitude of recognition and a deserved tribute to those who contributed with their observation and research for developing the medical sciences.
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The Metaphysical Foundations of Human Cloning
James A. MARCUM
Original title: Os Fundamentos Metafísicos da Clonagem Humana
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Keywords: Holism – Human cloning – Methodological reductionism – Ontological reductionism – Reproductive technology.
The presuppositions upon which human reproductive cloning technology relies are examined, in order to address the debate over human uniqueness and identity, as well as dignity and flourishing. To that end, the presupposition of reductionism that animates the modern biomedical sciences is initially explored. As methodological reductionism, reductionism is important for conducting scientific research; but as ontological reductionism, it is often insufficient for interpreting the cultural or social meaning of scientific data. The distinction between methodological and ontological reductionism is necessary to address the debate surrounding reproductive cloning technology and human nature and flourishing. Scientists and others who depend upon empirical research would be better served by shifting from ontological reductionism to holism, when interpreting scientific data on human cloning in terms of their social meaning and impact on public policy.
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The Hippocratic Oath: a referential preview of contemporary Bioethics
José Benjamim GOMES
Original title: O Juramento de Hipócrates: uma antevisão referencial da Bioética contemporânea
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Keywords: Autonomy, Bioethics, Hippocratic Oath, Professional Code, Sacredness of Life.
This work shows the actuality of the Hippocratic Oath in contemporary days, especially in Bioethics. The great benefices and challenges imposed by the medical science and technology advancement cannot be underestimated. There is a great gap between a highly technic and pragmatic biomedicine and a true humanizing medicine. In the last decades, the risky human experimentation and the medical technology improvement increased even more the risks, the challenges and the conflicts that threat the great ethical values already historically consecrated. The Ethical Medics were reduced to the professional Code, and Deontology itself could not answer to moral conflicts and antagonisms between different philosophical traditions. Bioethics, as a philosophy of biomedical practice and investigation, actually is the space of such discussion, and has in the Hippocratic Oath the origin of its principles and issues. Among the ethical principles in the Oath, the sacredness of life appears as a compromise solemnly proclaimed, without any concession to abortion or euthanasia. Even if such questions are categorically portrayed in the Oath, they remain highly controversial in Bioethics, if we take into account the contemporary interpretation given to principles like autonomy and liberty of the individual. The contemporary ethical pluralism allows different pathways to highly conflictive questions that were already points of conflict in Ancient Greece. Although the controversies of historical and conceptual nature seem to compromise the Hippocratic tradition prestige, its prescriptions cannot be left aside when controversial questions in the fields of Ethics, Science and Medical Technology are raised in the Academy. Although twenty-five centuries separate the Hippocratic Oath from the contemporary Bioethics, the history of medicine shows that it is in this new field of knowledge that the relevance of that ancient text appears. Judged as conservative or even anachronic by some and as an ethical parameter of great importance by others, the Hippocratic Oath still remains as a millenary reference in the ethical stance adopted by Health professionals; and this happens always when such professionals are confronted with the risks, challenges and moral conflicts generated by science and medical technology.
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Editorial: The Foundations of Bioethics
Hélio ANGOTTI NETO
Original title: Editorial: Os Fundamentos da Bioética
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Keywords: Bioethics, Foundations of Bioethics.
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Medical Humanities – The Edmund Pellegrino’s Project
Hélio ANGOTTI NETO
Original title: Humanidades Médicas – O Projeto de Edmund Pellegrino
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Keywords: Medical Humanities – Edmund Pellegrino.
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The Medical-Patient Relationship in the Hippocratic Works: Ancient Medicine; Airs, Waters, and Places; Epidemy I and III; Precepts.
Kaio Cezar Gomes PESSIM, Hélio ANGOTTI NETO
Original title: A Relação Médico-Paciente na Obra Hipocrática: Medicina Antiga; Ares, Líquidos e Locais; Epidemia I e III; Preceitos.
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Keywords: Hippocrates, Medical-Patient Relationship.
The origin of Ocidental Medicine occurs in Ancient Greece with the Hippocratic School, when the technical and ethical principles for healthcare that still endure were created. Our objective is to correlate Hippocratic original excerpts on medical ethics with contemporary professional and ethic parameters, showing the link between the origin of western medicine and its contemporary practice. The material of this work derives from the first volume of Hippocratic writings form the Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard, and compared with Spanish and Portuguese translations together with the original Greek excerpts. The original excerpts from the Hippocratic writings were selected according to the relation observed with medical-patient relationship and contemporary aspects professionalism. The Hippocratic work, here exposed, shows professional and ethical aspects that remain valid and comprehensible according to contemporary parameters observed in medical practice, which can be seen in ethical works like the Medical Code of Ethics, from the Federal Council of Medicine, in Brazil.
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The Pedagogy of Clinical Empathy: Formation of the Physician
Nicholas J. BELLACICCO, James A. MARCUM
Original title: The Pedagogy of Clinical Empathy: Formation of the Physician
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Keywords: Empathy, Medical Education, Quality Healthcare, Sympathy.
Clinical empathy is a lively topic of discussion in the contemporary medical literature. Research indicates that empathetic physicians receive higher patient satisfaction ratings, as well as improved patient health outcomes, compared to non-empathetic clinicians. Consequently, clinical empathy appears to be instrumental in providing quality patient care. If empathy is essential for improving healthcare outcomes, should not medical students learn to be more empathetic? To address this question, we first explore the distinction between clinical sympathy and empathy. Then, two essays from the medical literature are used to compare the empathetic with the non-empathetic physician. Next, we examine the pedagogical issues involved in teaching empathy to premedical and medical students, as well as to residents. Finally, we conclude by discussing the imperative for training clinicians to deliver quality empathetic healthcare.
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Introduction to Medicine didactics of the Middle-Ages: analysis of medical treatises of the Iberian Peninsula
Josué VILLA PRIETO
Original title: Introducción a la didáctica de la Medicina en la Edad Media: análisis de los tratados médicos de la Península Ibérica
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Keywords: Alonso Chirino, Arnau de Vilanova, Didactic treatises, History of Education, History of Medicine, Medieval medicine, Ramón Llull.
The Medical treatises produced in the Iberian Peninsula express Galen and Hippocrates traditional knowledge almost without introducing something new until the Late Middle Ages. This study proposes an interpretative synthesis about those new elements in a significant period of the genesis of Medicine as a modern science: how intellectuals define their attributions, how is inserted its teaching at Iberian studia generalia, who compose textbooks and materials for its study, how are organized these same treatises and, of course, which contents do they have.
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The contribution of Ernesto Salles Cunha for paleopathology in the State of Espirito Santo, Brazil
Henrique Antônio VALADARES COSTA, Patrícia D. DEPS
Original title: A contribuição de Ernesto Salles Cunha para a paleopatologia no Estado do Espírito Santo, Brasil
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Keywords: Archeology, Ernesto Salles Cunha, Paleopathology, Prehistory, Sambaquis.
Ernesto de M. Salles Cunha (1907-1977) was Professor of Dentistry School at the Universidade Federal Fluminense and set his life as an enthusiast of the Brazilian history of health, more precisely about the history of dental health and the development of archeology in Brazil. This article demonstrates the importance of the researcher presence in the Capixaba`s territory contributing with the studies about the dental paleopathology of the Sambaquis population in the State of Espirito Santo.
