While medical language is soaked in metaphor, medicine – that is, medical culture, clinical practice, and medical education – outwardly rejects metaphor for objective, literal scientific language. Arguing that this is a misstep, this book critically considers what embracing the use of metaphors, similes and aphorisms might mean for shaping medical culture, and especially the doctor-patient relationship, in a healthy way. It demonstrates how the landscape of medicine may be reshaped through metaphor shift and is an important work for all those interested in the use of language in medicine.

While medical language is soaked in metaphor, and thinking with metaphor is central to diagnostic work, medicine – that is, medical culture, clinical practice and medical education – outwardly rejects metaphor for objective, literal scientific language. This thought-provoking book argues that this is a misstep, and critically considers what embracing the use of metaphors and similes might mean for shaping medical culture, and especially the doctor–patient relationship, in a healthy way. Thinking With Metaphors in Medicine explores: how metaphors inhabit medicine – sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse – and how these metaphors can be revealed, appreciated and understood; how diagnostic work utilizes thinking with metaphors; how patient–doctor communication can be better understood and enhanced as a metaphorical exchange; how the landscape of medicine is historically shaped by leading or didactic metaphors, such as ‘the body as machine’ and ‘medicine as war’, which may conflict with other values or perspectives on healthcare, for instance, person-centred care. Outlining the kinds of metaphors and resemblances that inhabit medicine and how they shape practices and identities of doctors, colleagues and patients, this book demonstrates how the landscape of medicine may be reshaped through metaphor shift. It is an important work for all those interested in the use of language and rhetoric in medicine, whether hailing from a humanities, social science or healthcare background.

This book claims that metaphors must be seen as indispensable cognitive and communicative instruments in medical science. Analysis of texts taken from recently published medical handbooks reveals what kind of metaphors are used to structure certain medical concepts and what the functions are of the metaphorical expressions in the texts. Special attention is drawn to the idea that scientific facts do not originate from passive observation of reality. Imaginative thinking and the use of metaphors are required to make the unknown accessible to us. Yet, although metaphors are often a sine qua non for the genesis of a scientific fact, they may also inhibit the development of alternative views. This is due to the fact that metaphors always highlight certain aspects of a phenomenon while other aspects remain obscured. Analysis of the metaphors used in medical texts may reveal exactly which aspects are highlighted and which remain hidden and may thus help to find alternative metaphors (and possibly therapies) when current metaphors are no longer adequate. This book should be of interest not only to linguists, translators and researchers working in the field of intercultural communication, but also to doctors and medical scientists, and those interested in the philosophy of science.

Following criticisms of the traditionally polarized view of understanding suffering through either medicine or social justice, Lowe makes a compelling argument for how the medical humanities can help to go beyond the traditional biographical and epistemic breaks to see into the nature and properties of suffering and what is at stake. Lowe demonstrates through analysis of major healthcare workforce issues and incidence of burnout how key policies and practices influence healthcare education and experiences of both patients and health professionals. By including first person narratives from health professionals as a tool and resource, she illustrates how dominant ideas about the self enter practice as a refusal of suffering. Demonstrating the relationship between personal experience, theory and research, Lowe argues for a pedagogy of suffering that shows how the moral anguish implicit in suffering is an ethical response of the emergent self. This is an important read for all those interested in medical humanities, health professional education, person-centred care and the sociology of health and illness.

Containing papers carefully compiled for both their historical importance and contemporary relevance, Family Medicine: The Classic Papers brings together a team of experts, led by global family medicine leaders Michael Kidd, Iona Heath and Amanda Howe, who explain the importance of each selected paper and how it contributes to international health care, current practice and research. The papers demonstrate the broad scope of primary health care delivered by family doctors around the world, showcasing some of the most important research ever carried out in family medicine and primary care. This unique volume will serve as an inspiration to current family doctors and family medicine researchers and educators, as well as to doctors in training, medical students and emerging researchers in family medicine.

The Lens of Language -- From Words to "Making Up People" -- The Nature of Metaphor -- The Militarized Arena of Medicine -- Sources of the Military Metaphor -- Consequences of the Verbal Wars -- Resilience of the Military Metaphor -- In Other Words -- Listening -- A Pharmacology of Words -- The Physician-Patient Relationship -- Choosing Metaphors.

This book explains how narrative medicine can improve evidence based medicine (EBM), making it more effective and efficient, giving patients better quality of life and offering more satisfaction to all health care providers. It discusses not only the disease experienced by the person who is ill, but also focuses on the context and the culture, and investigates how narrative medicine can make other disciplines around the globe more applicable, less manipulative, and more “scientific”. Only by integrating the narrative aspects, can EBM become more effective and efficient, with fewer uncured patients, more satisfied patients with a better quality of life, and satisfaction for all health care providers. Every chapter is divided into two main sections: the first presents the latest research in the field, with comments and interviews with experts, while the second section provides a list of practical exercises and tasks. The book is intended for anyone with an interest in caring for and curing patients: all care providers of care, physicians, general practitioners, specialists nurses, psychotherapists, counselors, social workers, providers of aid, healthcare managers, scientific societies, academics and researchers.

This book explores previously unexamined overlaps between the poetic imagination and the medical mind. It shows how appreciation of poetry can help us to engage with medicine in more intense ways based on ‘de-familiarising’ old habits and bringing poetic forms of ‘close reading’ to the clinic. Bleakley and Neilson carry out an extensive critical examination of the well-established practices of narrative medicine to show that non-narrative, lyrical poetry does different kind of work, previously unexamined, such as place eclipsing time. They articulate a groundbreaking ‘lyrical medicine’ that promotes aesthetic, ethical and political practices as well as noting the often-concealed metaphor cache of biomedicine. Demonstrating that ambiguity is a key resource in both poetry and medicine, the authors anatomise poetic and medical practices as forms of extended and situated cognition, grounded in close readings of singular contexts. They illustrate structural correspondences between poetic diction and clinical thinking, such as use of sound and metaphor. This provocative examination of the meaningful overlap between poetic and clinical work is an essential read for researchers and practitioners interested in extending the reach of medical and health humanities, narrative medicine, medical education and English literature.

Clinical reasoning is the foundation of professional clinical practice. Totally revised and updated, this book continues to provide the essential text on the theoretical basis of clinical reasoning in the health professions and examines strategies for assisting learners, scholars and clinicians develop their reasoning expertise. key chapters revised and updated nature of clinical reasoning sections have been expanded increase in emphasis on collaborative reasoning core model of clinical reasoning has been revised and updated