GNED 1202: Texts and Ideas

Culturally Competent Care

Care that respects patients' cultural beliefs, values and practices.

• language, social and cultural needs are met

Medical Schools

Groups of physicians organized around shared theories and approaches to healing.

Schools of thought

Rationalist School

• Used reasoning and theories about hidden bodily causes to explain disease.

• Okay with dissection of humans

• Mnemonic: Root cause

Empiricist School

• Prioritized observation, experience and proven treatments over speculative theories.

• Case history, focus on writing

• Ancient reddit

Methodist School

• Classified illness by bodily states, especially constriction and relaxation, to guide treatment.

• Prioritized their method

  • Is the body constricted, loose, or in-between?

• Quick and pleasant treatments

• Become a doctor, speed run edition!

Ancient Mediterranean Diet

• A food pattern emphasizing grains (pulses/cereals), legumes, olives, fruits, vegetables and fish.

• Not big on meat, dairy, and sweets

Sex vs. Gender

• Sex concerns biological traits

• Gender concerns social roles, identities and expectations.

Wandering Womb

Theory that the uterus moved through the body, causing physical and psychological symptoms like hysteria.

Pregnancy cure, smell therapy/vaginal fumigation

Maia

• Ancient specialist in childbirth, pregnancy and women’s health

• Treatments for regimen, pharmacology, and surgery

Rufus of Ephesus

Greek physician known for anatomical writings, clinical observation and contributions to medical knowledge.

• Big on asking patients questions

• Believed in humoral theory

• Respected Hippocratic books, but thought questions needed to be asked

• Melancholic? Sex, wine, and music!

Scribonius Largus

Roman physician who wrote Compositiones, a collection of medicinal remedies emphasizing humane medical practice.

• Big on pharmacology

  • “Hands of the gods”

  • Talked about drug-sellers (NOT doctors, but this guy didn’t care too much)

• Wrote a book called Recipes

• Fan of Hippocrates, but held pharmacology even higher regard

Cato the Elder

Roman statesman who promoted traditional Roman remedies and expressed distrust of Greek physicians.

• Cabbage is the cure to everything

• Despite knowing many Greek medicinal ideas and even implementing some of their humoral logic, he did NOT like them.

  • Thought they would corrupt Roman ideals and wanted to kill all foreigners

Galen

Greek physician whose writings on anatomy, physiology and humoral theory shaped medicine for centuries.

• Strong feelings about Greek food

  • Thought it was easier to “concoct” (digest)

• More similar to rationalists, but not in any school

• Did some pretty cruel animal dissections

  • Arteries, vocal cords

  • Famous for that pig dissection

• Would like to dissect a human body if given the chance

Soranus of Ephesus

Greek physician known for On Gynecology and influential teachings on pregnancy, childbirth and midwifery.

• Focused on how early girls should start having sex (14), not too early not too late

  • progressive for the time

• Methodist, but more educated than most methodists

Metrodora

• Author of the only surviving book from Greco-Roman antiquity

  • On the Diseases and Cures of Women.

• Believed in the wandering womb, smell treatment, big on Greek ideas

• Hippocratic ideas

• Greek

Medical Marketplace

Competitive environment where physicians offered treatments and patients chose among healers.

Regimen

A prescribed lifestyle involving diet, exercise, sleep and daily habits to maintain health.

MMIs

Method for screening potential medical school candidates

Hippocratic Corpus

Collection of ancient Greek medical writings by multiple authors, not solely Hippocrates.

Humoral Theory

Health depended on balancing four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.

Blood

• Air

• Hot and moist

• Sanguine

Phlegm

• Water

• Cold and moist

• Phlegmatic

Yellow bile

• Fire

• Hot and dy

• Choleric

Black bile

• Earth

• Cold and dry

• Melancholic

Paternalism

A physician makes healthcare decisions for a patient, believing they know what is best.

Autonomy

A patient's right to make informed decisions about their own healthcare.

Informed Consent

A patient's voluntary agreement after understanding a treatment's risks, benefits and alternatives.

Autonomy

Respect patient choice

Beneficence

Promote wellbeing

Justice

Distribute healthcare fairly.

Empathy

Involves understanding another's feelings

Sympathy

Involves concern for their suffering.

Placebo Effect

A perceived or actual improvement resulting from expectations surrounding a treatment.

Scientific Racism

Misuse of scientific claims to justify racial hierarchies, discrimination and inequality.

Environmental Determinism

The theory that environmental conditions strongly shape human characteristics and behaviour.

Heredity

The transmission of biological characteristics from parents to offspring through genetics.

Incubation (Asclepian Healing)

Ritual sleep in a healing sanctuary, where patients sought divine guidance through dreams.

Temples of Asclepius

Ancient Greek healing sanctuaries where patients sought treatment through rituals, offerings and incubation.

Hippocratic Oath

Ancient ethical pledge outlining physicians' responsibilities, professional conduct and obligations to patients.

Lasagna Oath

Modernized version of the Hippocratic Oath written by physician Louis Lasagna in 1964.

On the Sacred Illness

Hippocratic text arguing conditions surrounding seizures have natural causes rather than divine origins.

On Epidemics

Hippocratic writings documenting clinical observations, disease progression and patient case histories.

On Decorum

Hippocratic writing concerning appropriate physician conduct, appearance and professional behaviour.

Airs, Waters, Places

Hippocratic text examining how climate, geography, water and environment influence health. (Strong example of environmental determinism)

On Regimen

Hippocratic treatise explaining how diet, exercise and lifestyle influence health and bodily balance.

Inscriptions from Epidaurus

Records of healing miracles at the sanctuary of Asclepius, documenting religious approaches to medicine.

Hypochondria / Hypochondriac / Hypochondriasis

• Excessive and abnormal anxiety about health conditions

• Can be used to dismiss patient concerns, recently been dismissed as an official diagnosis

• The etymology has roots in bodily terms and not it being a mental health condition

Somatic Symptom Disorder

When one or more bodily symptoms are distressing a patient more than they should

Illness Anxiety Disorder

Modern version of the condition where people worry excessively over their health

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health (DSM-5)

• Source book for all psych/mental health workers

• Revisions are frequent → implies this book’s content is fallible