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Humor nugget
General Cardiology
Humor Nugget
History, Humor, Humanism
Frank Bracke, MD, Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Village Doctor Eduardo Bossone, MD, PhD, Department of Echocardiographic Research, San Donato Hospital, Milan, Italy
Recently during a ward round, a patient whom I attended to for the first time asked me, “are you a doctor or a cardiologist?” At first I was perplexed as the perception of being a cardiologist without being a doctor, and the only answer I would think of was “I hope both.” With increasing emphasis on subspecialties, this question painfully exposes the image of the contemporary cardiologist as an operator of technical wizardry rather than a physician taking care of the patient.
“Cum sanitas videatur fato ⬍deberi⬎, debetur et medico, quia ad nos beneficium fati per huius manus venit.” Seneca Naturales Quaestiones II, 38, 4
In the south of Italy under the shadow of Vesuvio, there is an ancient mediterranean village named Lauro. It has been there for 2000 years, lying quietly in the center of a green valley surrounded by vineyards and olive trees. The daily life of the village has changed little through the centuries, ignoring the times and the styles of modernity and regulated by simple and pure principles founded on the solidarity and tolerance among a cluster of families. There lives in this village an old family doctor who has served Lauro for 50 years. He is part of and belongs to this land and these families. He loves his profession and delivers it with strength of passion and humanity. Each day he goes house by house to answer the calls and meet the needs of patients who cannot come to his office in his home in the center of the village. Each face within each family tells a story. He has taken with each family the long and marvelous journey of life, sharing happy times and sad times, but always sharing. Sometimes he’s been paid for his services, sometimes not. Sometimes his pay has been tomatoes, fresh olives, a little money, or a big meal. Sometimes, he thinks that maybe he should have been paying them. What can we learn and preserve of this experience in our days? In the current era of computers and high-tech cardiology where the relationships among people are influenced and stifled by the high velocities of our times, we are left with the recurring question of how to keep alive the human side of the patient-doctor relationship? Yet this gift is what makes our profession special and unique. Seneca wrote that the medical doctor remains the priest of the human health to whom is given the mission to modulate the written destiny (genetics). Somehow, this important role must be carried out in accordance with the demand of our time and with the support of the modern technology, but without ignoring the soul that is in everyone of us. The old man is my father. Address Correspondence and reprint requests to Eduardo Bossone, MD Department of Echocardiographic Research, San Donato Hospital, Via Morandi, 30 20097 S. Donato Milanese, Milano, Italy. ACC CURRENT JOURNAL REVIEW Nov/Dec 2001 © 2001 by the American College of Cardiology Published by Elsevier Science Inc.
22
1062-1458/01/$20.00 PII S1062-1458(01)00444-5
Humor Nugget
History, Humor, Humanism
Frank Bracke, MD, Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Village Doctor Eduardo Bossone, MD, PhD, Department of Echocardiographic Research, San Donato Hospital, Milan, Italy
Recently during a ward round, a patient whom I attended to for the first time asked me, “are you a doctor or a cardiologist?” At first I was perplexed as the perception of being a cardiologist without being a doctor, and the only answer I would think of was “I hope both.” With increasing emphasis on subspecialties, this question painfully exposes the image of the contemporary cardiologist as an operator of technical wizardry rather than a physician taking care of the patient.
“Cum sanitas videatur fato ⬍deberi⬎, debetur et medico, quia ad nos beneficium fati per huius manus venit.” Seneca Naturales Quaestiones II, 38, 4
In the south of Italy under the shadow of Vesuvio, there is an ancient mediterranean village named Lauro. It has been there for 2000 years, lying quietly in the center of a green valley surrounded by vineyards and olive trees. The daily life of the village has changed little through the centuries, ignoring the times and the styles of modernity and regulated by simple and pure principles founded on the solidarity and tolerance among a cluster of families. There lives in this village an old family doctor who has served Lauro for 50 years. He is part of and belongs to this land and these families. He loves his profession and delivers it with strength of passion and humanity. Each day he goes house by house to answer the calls and meet the needs of patients who cannot come to his office in his home in the center of the village. Each face within each family tells a story. He has taken with each family the long and marvelous journey of life, sharing happy times and sad times, but always sharing. Sometimes he’s been paid for his services, sometimes not. Sometimes his pay has been tomatoes, fresh olives, a little money, or a big meal. Sometimes, he thinks that maybe he should have been paying them. What can we learn and preserve of this experience in our days? In the current era of computers and high-tech cardiology where the relationships among people are influenced and stifled by the high velocities of our times, we are left with the recurring question of how to keep alive the human side of the patient-doctor relationship? Yet this gift is what makes our profession special and unique. Seneca wrote that the medical doctor remains the priest of the human health to whom is given the mission to modulate the written destiny (genetics). Somehow, this important role must be carried out in accordance with the demand of our time and with the support of the modern technology, but without ignoring the soul that is in everyone of us. The old man is my father. Address Correspondence and reprint requests to Eduardo Bossone, MD Department of Echocardiographic Research, San Donato Hospital, Via Morandi, 30 20097 S. Donato Milanese, Milano, Italy. ACC CURRENT JOURNAL REVIEW Nov/Dec 2001 © 2001 by the American College of Cardiology Published by Elsevier Science Inc.
22
1062-1458/01/$20.00 PII S1062-1458(01)00444-5