Medicine and the senses are inextricably linked.
Medicine is much more art than I thought. It is the most humane and artistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. I’m looking for ways to bring doctors back into our profession today. This is because we need to understand that we are not only scientists but also artists, and we must do this practice consciously to re-enchant ourselves.
Hippocrates of Cos, the father of our profession, created the rational system based on observation and experience, using only two diagnostic tools: the senses and reason. Since then, medicine has been an art and a science. Medicine and the senses are inextricably linked. They make us true artists when trying to explain the illness or health of our patients by interacting with the environment that surrounds us through the sensations we receive in our receptors.
Hippocrates of Cos based his practice on the observation and study of the human body. For him, the disease had a physical and rational explanation. Therefore, he is considered the father of medicine.
Physicians, historians, and writers have a lot in common regarding researching, describing, and explaining human needs… our senses are fundamental to achieving them. They are the contributions of information through hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste that help us hear, see and feel the states of health deterioration. Our ears with a stethoscope can listen to the heartbeat during cardiac auscultation.
The human mind is so powerful that it allows us to establish relationships between perceptions and make judgments. The reason is our guide when making clinical decisions. It is also the foundation of evidence-based medicine, devised by Dr. Gordon Henry Guyatt at Canada’s McMaster University. It refers to using scientific methodology to order medical information to improve the clinical decision-making process. In the end, we seek to improve the results of our patients with this methodology.
In these recent years, misconceptions have spread like wildfire. That is why our scientific side is so important. We have had to strengthen our critical thinking and that of the population, so we understand and value the phenomena from precise reasoning. Today, more than ever, more education is needed to be more critical and seek to provide the best care during the care process for our patients.
Although medicine evolves and our understanding of health and disease increases, our roots continue to be the reason and the senses. We are still scientists and artists. Happy doctor’s day!
