Culture & Medicine

Background: Culture & Medicine

The medical profession is becoming much more responsive to the role of cultural difference in healthcare systems. Knowing a patient’s cultural assumptions can help the healthcare professional diagnose and treat illnesses more effectively. For example, in some cultures healthcare decisions are made by the head of the family rather than the patient per se (assumption: the patient is not necessarily the most important person in healthcare decisions). In others, deeply held religious convictions mandate or forbid certain responses (assumption: religion is more important than medical treatment), or religion is seen as a cause of illness or health (assumption: health responds to belief).

It is not always easy, though, to recognize our own biases. In this assignment, you are being asked to scrutinize some assumptions that you may have. Here are some healthcare assumptions that have historically been made in the West:

The basic unit of sickness is the individual

The doctor and patient have an equal say in the treatment plan

Mental illness and physical illness are separate; they are also treatable separately

Illness is secular; it is also morally neutral

Life ends when the brain ceases all functioning

Diseases are universal and essential (e.g., cancer is cancer no matter who has it)

Please respond to the question below: 

Identify and describe an idea or bias that you see present in Greek or Roman medicine.

This post is about ideas, not facts, so please go beyond the ancients’ available technologies or even the knowledge of the body. Answers such as “They thought bloodletting was an effective practice” doesn’t get at why they might have thought so.