Daily English Vocab
PDF 1st March 2017
Why Doctors Need Humanities
Including it in medical education is the best way to bring back humanism to the profession
Medicine is defined as the art and science of healing. Today globally, science has largely
overridden (लघं न करना/आगे चले जाना) the art part of healing. In India, entrance to medical schools is
based entirely on tests based on scientific facts and concepts with a little of logical critical thinking
areas handled by the left side of the brain.
Our medical curriculum requires hours of drudgery (अरुचचकर व कचिन कार्य) in trying to remember
facts and figures. Almost no medical school in India lays any emphasis on art in medical
curriculum. The right side of the brain is concerned with fine arts including imagery, poetry and
drawing. As someone said “medical school attracts those who are of left brain, but then proceeds
to atrophy (क्षीण होना/अपक्षर् होना) what is left of their right brain”.
Unlike physics or chemistry, medicine is not a pure science. Medicine is largely an applied science
and it requires certain skills that are developed by observation, practice and experience similar to
the arts more than science. It can be said that medicine is science when it is used to study disease
but becomes an art when it is used to practice healing.
While medicine has a long and distinguished history of caring and comforting, the scientific basis
of medicine is recent. That medicine is a science is nevertheless the popular belief, and this has
been reinforced by the advent (आगमन) of `evidence-based medicine'. Scientific truths are not true
for all times, unlike truths in the field of the arts. In art there is no right or wrong but only a
perspective or a point of view, whereas in medicine one being right or wrong is life determining.
Ideas on causation, diagnosis and management of diseases change with passage of time and advent
of new technology or understanding. Even in a given time, one medical practitioner may have a
genuinely different opinion of diagnosis and treatment about a particular case with respect to
another colleague based on his or her experience and expertise.
With progress of science and its application, there has been a rapid decline in the human element
of health care provision. The current technological advances have worsened this divide. The art of
clinical medicine is dying in the present set-up with high-tech gadgets. The recent upsurge
(चढाव/वृचि) of doctors being abused and manhandled especially in casualties (हताहत) and
emergencies is a consequence of this.
This is occurring not because of their lack of scientific knowledge but is related to their insensitive
behaviour which emanates (उत्पन्न होना/चनगयत होना) from their ignorance as well as inability to handle
the emotional distress of sick individuals and their near and dear ones. Doctors should not allow
scientific medicine to blunt their humanity, ignore ethics and the need for empathy (समवेदना/हमददी).
A typical consultation today is of less than ten minutes and consists of a few cursory (सरसरी)
questions followed by a long list of investigations and medicines to be taken with poor explanation
of whys and hows. Genuine doctor-patient relationships do not exist any longer. In early seventies,
when the Framingham Heart study in United States subjects were being recruited through their
doctors, most of them opined that while their own physician was a good one, others were no good
clearly an impossible phenomenon! Today in India even that is unlikely. Doctor-patient trust is at
its lowest and doctor shopping is blatantly practised.
All doctor-patient interactions, whether these are in a hospital or in the community, require a caring
attitude from the doctor coupled with communication. Today science has given doctors far more
ammunition (अस्र-शस्र) (here the term is used metaphorically) than ever before to fight disease,
but the repeated bombarding has made them deafer than ever and they can no longer hear the cries
of their patients. A good clinician is one who is armed with scientific knowledge, practices using
clinical judgment, compassion and understanding.
In India, we need to reverse the pendulum that has swung fully to the science from the art side in
medicine. An infusion of arts in medical education might be the solution to this all pervasive
deafness of medical professionals. Many medical educationists have argued that art and literature
should have a place in the medical curriculum because art helps doctors to understand experiences,
illness and human values and that art itself can fulfill a therapeutic role.
This kind of education can help doctors grapple with the kinds of existential questions that they
expect their patients to answer and that they themselves may not be equipped to answer. All
medical colleges usually have a cinema and literary club. They do little to promote either cinema
or literature. There is a need to go beyond these tokenisms (Tokenism is the practice of making
only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups,
especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to
give the appearance of racial or sexual equality within a workforce.) and aim for some
structural changes in medical education in India.
It is time the Medical Council of India or its newer avatar considers inclusion of arts in the medical
curriculum from first year itself. The importance of humanities in medical education is being
realised across the globe and steps are being taken to introduce it in medical schools. India should
not be left behind.
Today patients in India are being squeezed between incompetence on one side (thanks to a
floundering (struggle or stagger clumsily) medical education industry) and corruption on the
other (thanks to a commission culture set up by drug and investigative industry); and from the top
by arrogance of medical professionals. Instilling empathy among medical practitioners may be the
best way to start addressing all these malpractices jointly.
Courtesy: The Times of India (Concern)
1. Override (verb): To prevail over/ to extend or pass over. (लघं न करना/आगे चले जाना)
Synonyms: Move Over, Pass Over, Transcend, Surpass, Set Aside.
Antonyms: Fall Behind, Lag.
Example: Don't let your anger override common sense.
Verb forms: Override, Overridden, Overridden.
2. Drudgery (noun): Hard menial or dull work/ exhausting work. (अरुचचकर व कचिन कार्य)
Synonyms: Menial Work, Donkey Work, Labor Work, Plodding.
Antonyms: Fun, Entertainment.
Example: To me, my summer job at a fast food restaurant was sheer drudgery.
Verb forms: Drudge, Drudged, Drudged.
Related words:
Drudge (verb) - do hard menial work.
3. Atrophy (verb): Gradually decline in effectiveness or vigour due to underuse or neglect. (क्षीण
होना/अपक्षर् होना)
Synonyms: Dwindle, Deteriorate, Decline, Wane, Fade, Wither, Shrivel.
Antonyms: Ascent, Betterment, Develop, Improve.
Example: According to researchers, the lack of exercise causes muscles to atrophy and become
feeble.
Verb forms: Atrophy, Atrophied, Atrophied.
Related words:
Atrophy (noun) - any weakening or degeneration (especially through lack of use)
4. Advent (noun): The arrival of a notable person or thing. (आगमन)
Synonyms: Arrival, Appearance, Emergence, Occurrence, Dawn, Origin, Rise.
Antonyms: Departure, Leaving, End.
Example: With the advent of the Internet the technology has changed a lot.
Related words:
Adventitious (adjective) - आगन्तुक
5. Upsurge (noun): An upward surge in the strength or quantity of something; an increase.
(चढाव/वृचि)
Synonyms: Boom, Improvement, Upswing, Upturn, Increase, Rise.
Antonyms: Downturn, Downfall.
Example: An upsurge in the violent crime in the city makes it less safe for the people.
6. Casualties (noun): Loss in numerical strength through any cause, as death, wounds, sickness,
capture, or desertion. (जनहाचन/हताहतों की सख्ं र्ा)
Synonyms: Fatality, Mortality, Dead and injured/wounded, missing in action.
Antonyms: Safe, Guarded, Protected.
Example: The devastating earthquake causes several casualties in the city.
7. Empathy (noun): The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. (समवेदना/हमददी)
Synonyms: Affinity, Compassion, Sympathy,
Antonyms: Disdain, Hatred, Indifference, Mercilessness.
Example: Bart has a hard time forming healthy relationships because he lacks empathy for others.
Verb forms: Empathize, Empathized, Empathized.
Related words:
Empathize (verb) - समानभु तू त होना
8. Cursory (adjective): Hasty and therefore not thorough or detailed. (सरसरी)
Synonyms: Perfunctory, Casual, Superficial, Inattentive.
Antonyms: Careful, Detailed, Complete, thorough.
Example: After a cursory examination of the artifacts, the archaeologist realized that he had
probably stumbled on the find of the century.
9. Ammunition (noun): Weapons./ tools, weapons or instruments of a profession. (अस्र-शस्र)
Synonyms: Armament, Weapon, Ordnance, Cartridge.
Example: The gunman arrested by police was apparently carrying enough ammunition to kill
hundreds of people.
Related words:
Ammo (noun) - projectiles to be fired from a gun
10. Emanate (verb) : Originate from; be produced by/ to come out from a source. (उत्पन्न होना/चनगयत
होना)
Synonyms: Arise, Derive, Emerge, Emit, Originate.
Antonyms: Hold, Keep, Conceal.
Example: If you rub the magical lamp, a genie will emanate from the bottle.
Verb forms: Emanate, Emanated, Emanated.
Related words:
Emanation (noun) - The act of emitting/ causing to flow forth.
11. Flounder (verb): Struggle or stagger clumsily (जूझना)
Synonyms: struggle, battle, conflict, grapple, fight.
Antonyms: Stable, Secure, Enduring, Established.
Example: After it hit the iceberg, the Titanic was left to flounder in the Atlantic Ocean before it
finally sank.
Verb forms: Flounder, Floundered, Floundered.
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