SOC 207 Lecture 13: The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine
Document Summary
The nature of suffering and the goals of medicine. Even though physicians have been tasked to relieve pain for thousands of years, little attention is explicitly given to the problem of suffering in medical education, research or practice. It is not uncommon for suffering to occur not only during the course of the disease, but as a results of its treatment. Example of the 35-year-old woman: she suffered from her pain, but also from some threats that were social, personal, and private. She also suffered from her pereption of the future. This woman"s suffering was not confined to her physical symptoms. She suffered from the treatment, not just the disease. None could anticipate what she would describe as a source of suffering, she had to be asked. Patients and their friends and families don"t make a distinction between physical and nonphysical sources of suffering in the same way doctors do.
