Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Think like a doctor, part I
For nearly five years, I've been writing about medicine. One of the questions I hear the most is, "When it comes to my health, who do I believe?"
Anyone who's read my writing knows I'm critical of so-called alternative medical practices. I'm also critical of the abuse of mainstream medical practices. I've had years of education devoted to studying human medicine. How is a layperson to know what works and what doesn't, what is real medicine and what is hucksterism disguised as medicine? And, how can physicians explain this to their patients? In my mind, I've subtitled this series, "An Introduction to Medical Skepticism."
The study of human medicine goes back, presumably, to the beginning. Gods, spirits and ill-winds have always been invoked to explain illness. "Malaria" means "bad airs," even though we now know it's caused by a small organism transmitted by mosquitoes. As humanity became literate, human illness was studied and observations recorded systematically. Hippocrates of Cos, who probably lived and practiced around the 4th century BCE, wrote excellent observations on the natural history of many common illnesses, descriptions that modern doctors easily recognize.
In the 15th century, Andreas Vesalius dissected cadavers, recording his findings in beautiful and mostly accurate drawings. While human anatomy was probably well known to agrarians who slaughtered animals, and warriors, who slaughtered people, Vesalius' writings and pictures provided one of the most accurate catalogs to date of gross (non-microscopic) human anatomy. A century later, William Harvey gave the first complete description of the circulation of blood through the human body (probably; Ibn al-Nafis gave a partial description a couple of centuries earlier, while Europe was still immersed in the Dark Ages).
Through this time, as the anatomy and some basic physiology of the body was being described, real understanding of how the body works still eluded physicians. Doctors, such as they were, still held to ancient beliefs on cause and effect, mostly described using the "humors" or "temperaments" model, attributing disease to imbalances of "black bile," "blood" or other important substances. A disease believe to be caused by excess blood could be treated by bleeding, for example.
It wasn't until the 19th century that any real understanding of what we now call physiology began to appear. This is when medicine began to become more frankly materialistic (in the sense of "not supernatural"). At the time, it was widely believed that life was fundamentally different than non-life in that it was imbued with some sort of vital principle.
In 1828, chemist Friedrich Wohler synthesized urea, the first documented synthesis of an organic compound--compounds found in living things--from inorganic materials. This was thought to be impossible, as organic chemicals were supposedly fundamentally different from inorganic ones, imbued somehow with a "life force."
Wohler and his contemporaries showed that life is made of the same chemicals as everything else. Scientists began to believe that the human body must act by the same laws and processes as everything else in nature (though many still held on to an idea of a "soul" or something like it). Once it was realized that human beings were no different from any other part of the natural world, they could be studied without referencing ill humors or vital principles. Scientists and doctors began to study the function of the human body and how we might use this new understanding to help people.
The 20th century birthed the practice of scientific medicine. The Flexner report attempted to standardize medical education, something that could be done because of the shared understanding that medicine was now a science rather than a branch of religion. Deborah Blum's The Poisoner's Handbook follows doctors and chemists who use this new knowledge. Her narrative takes place in the early 20th century, when doctors and chemists struggled to understand illness and death caused by poison. Without an understanding of biology, chemistry and physiology, these breakthroughs could never have taken place. There was nothing easy and nothing supernatural about the discovery of how poisons worked and could be detected. It took hard work and a thorough understanding of science. From studying the damage done by poisons, they helped advance the science of how the human machine works.
Every advance we have made in preventing and treating disease is based on our understanding of the science of the human body. This combined with the use of statistical analysis has allowed us to live longer and healthier than our ancestors could have imagined.
In part II, I'll examine the piece that makes medical practice whole.
Peter A. Lipson, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. After graduating from Rush Medical College in Chicago, he completed his internal medicine residency at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. This post first appeared at his blog, White Coat Underground. The blog, which has been around in various forms since 2007, offers "musings on the intersection of science, medicine, and culture." His writing focuses on the difference between science-based medicine and "everything else," but also speaks to the day-to-day practice of medicine, fatherhood, and whatever else migrates from his head to his keyboard.
Labels: alternative medicine, guest post, Literature in medicine, medical history, Peter A. Lipson, White Coat Underground
posted by Peter A. Lipson, MD at
11:00 AM
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Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internistand ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert Fuchs,
MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP, graduated from the
University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, where he
also did his internal medicine training. Certified by the American
Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs spent three years as a
full-time faculty member at UCLA School of Medicine before opening
his private practice in Beverly Hills in 2000.
And Thus, It Begins
Amanda Xi, ACP Medical
Student Member, is a first-year medical student at the OUWB School
of Medicine, charter class of 2015, in Rochester, Mich., from which
she which chronicles her journey through medical training from day
1 of medical school.
Zackary Berger
Zackary Berger, MD, ACP Member, is a primary care doctor and
general internist in the Division of General Internal Medicine at
Johns Hopkins. His research interests include doctor-patient
communication, bioethics, and systematic reviews.
Controversies in Hospital
Infection Prevention
Run by three ACP
Fellows, this blog ponders vexing issues in infection prevention
and control, inside and outside the hospital. Daniel J Diekema, MD,
FACP, practices infectious diseases, clinical microbiology, and
hospital epidemiology in Iowa City, Iowa, splitting time between
seeing patients with infectious diseases, diagnosing infections in
the microbiology laboratory, and trying to prevent infections in
the hospital. Michael B. Edmond, MD, FACP, is a hospital
epidemiologist in Richmond, Va., with a focus on understanding why
infections occur in the hospital and ways to prevent these
infections, and sees patients in the inpatient and outpatient
settings. Eli N. Perencevich, MD, ACP Member, is an infectious
disease physician and epidemiologist in Iowa City, Iowa, who
studies methods to halt the spread of resistant bacteria in our
hospitals (including novel ways to get everyone to wash their
hands).
db's Medical Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating
medicine and the health care system.
DrDialogue
Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about
health topics for patients and health professionals.
Dr. Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal medicine for more
than a decade and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at an
academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is split
between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything
Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid changes in science,
medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the
Internal Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship &
Discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of
Chicago. Her education and research focus is on resident duty
hours, patient handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of
hospital care. She is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides transparency on the workings
of medical practice and the complexities of hospital care,
illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of caregiving and
decision-making from the perspective of an active primary care
physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of hospital
sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist at the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the Program
Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have
difficult-to-manage esophageal problems such as refractory GERD,
heartburn, and chest pain.
I'm dok
Mike Aref, MD, PhD, FACP, is an academic hospitalist with an
interest in basic and clinical science and education, with
interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic testing using
novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic reasoning, medical
informatics, new medical education modalities, pre-code/code
management, palliative care, patient-physician communication,
quality improvement, and quantitative biomedical imaging.
Informatics
Professor
William Hersh, MD, FACP, Professor and Chair, Department of Medical
Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health &
Science University, posts his thoughts on various topics related to
biomedical and health informatics.
David Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally renowned
authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of
chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in
integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
Just Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in clinical practice of
hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a joint publication
with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites
for influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses the joys and challenges of
medical practice, including controversies in the doctor-patient
relationship, medical ethics and measuring medical quality. When
he's not writing, he's performing colonoscopies.
Medical Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, FACP, shares her ideas on education, ethics
in medicine, health care news and culture. Her views on medicine
are informed by her past experiences in caring for patients, as a
researcher in cancer immunology, and as a patient who's had breast
cancer.
Mired in MedEd
Alexander M.
Djuricich, MD, FACP, is the Associate Dean for Continuing Medical
Education (CME), and a Program Director in Medicine-Pediatrics at
the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, where he
blogs about medical education.
More Musings
Rob Lamberts, MD, ACP Member, a med-peds and general practice
internist, returns with "volume 2" of his personal musings about
medicine, life, armadillos and Sasquatch at More Musings (of a
Distractible Kind).
Prescriptions
David M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a
small community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of
musings on medicine, medical care, the health care system and
medical ethics, in no particular order.
Reflections of a Grady
Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, reflects on the personal side of being
a doctor in a community hospital in Atlanta.
The Blog of Paul Sufka
Paul Sufka,
MD, ACP Member, is a board certified rheumatologist in St. Paul,
Minn. He was a chief resident in internal medicine with the
University of Minnesota and then completed his fellowship training
in rheumatology in June 2011 at the University of Minnesota
Department of Rheumatology. His interests include the use of
technology in medicine.
Technology in (Medical)
Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP, is interested in use of technology in
education, social media and networking, practice management and
evidence-based medicine tools, personal information and knowledge
management.
Peter A. Lipson,
MD
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and
teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. The blog, which has been
around in various forms since 2007, offers musings on the
intersection of science, medicine, and culture.
Why is American Health Care So Expensive?
Janice
Boughton, MD, FACP, practiced internal medicine for 20 years before
adopting a career in hospital and primary care medicine as a locum
tenens physician. She lives in Idaho when not traveling.
World's Best Site
Daniel Ginsberg, MD,
FACP, is an internal medicine physician who has avidly applied
computers to medicine since 1986, when he first wrote medically
oriented computer programs. He is in practice in Tacoma,
Washington.
Other blogs of note:
American Journal of
Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine
publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in
internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and
community-based practice.
Clinical
Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP
Member, associate program director at New York University Medical
Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents
and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news,
commentary and more.
Interact MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so
he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the
Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news
of the day.
PLoS Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a
blog.
White Coat
Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by an emergency
room physician.
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