Introduction

Drew Leder

pp. 1-12

in: Drew Leder (ed), The body in medical thought and practice, Berlin, Springer, 1992

Abstract

A critique has been levelled at modern medicine which goes something like this: Medical practice, though it has gained much over the last century in clinical efficacy, has lost something as well. Most importantly, it has progressively lost the human touch. Patients are often treated in a depersonalized, even dehumanized, fashion within the modern health-care system. Their suffering is not heard and responded to; their wishes are not incorporated fully into treatment decisions; their resources for self-healing are not called into play.