The most significant thing about reading is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see the world from their perspective. There are three main reasons why this is valuable to physicians.
Which are?
First, in general, it is explained how this practice can generate empathy for real people. Reading a variety of stories, fiction or nonfiction, forces the reader to engage with a point of view that is necessarily different from that of the reader.
It can be a similar point of view, but expressed in a different way, or it can be a radically different point of view that appeals to the imaginative capacities of the reader. However, this practice of imagination is exactly what we need to develop when talking to patients.
Second, reading increases vocabulary about how to talk about the world, specifically the world of health and disease. Each essay, poem, and story has the potential to surprise and captivate us with new ways of expressing the same ideas.
The importance of reading
Poetry is especially valuable for this, with rich language and careful attention to how the words are put together. As physicians, you are tasked with speaking to people in some of the darkest and most vulnerable parts of their lives. It is a component of sacred medical duty to think carefully and critically about the words we speak.
Reading can help you practice that by watching it in action; You can also help directly by introducing us to new words, phrases, metaphors, analogies, or other examples that we can use to better express ourselves with patients.
3 essential medical readings for the busy doctor
Being mortal: medicine and what matters in the end
Written by a surgeon, Being Mortal is an examination of how medicine can improve the quality of life and also provide a rich and dignified death.
Why did it make such an impression? “As physicians, we have to learn that [la medicina] it is not always about solving a problem. Being fatal is knowing when you can’t and concentrating on the person and not the disease, ”said an oncologist.
“All the training that doctors do is aimed at keeping people alive. This book brings us back to reality by teaching us how and when to let go with grace, ”said another doctor.
The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical accounts
In this book of 20 compelling case reports, clinical neurologist Oliver Sacks conveys both the medical significance and deeply human consequences involved in serious and unusual conditions of the mind.
Why did it make such an impression? “I really enjoyed The Man Who Mistook His Wife for an Oliver Sacks Hat. It was my first introduction to strange neurological diagnoses and the stories behind the patients, ”said a pediatrician.
Mountains beyond the mountains
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder tells the true story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard professor and infectious disease specialist who realized that his calling was to bring modern, life-saving medicine to people all over the world. the world who need it most.
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