Pensiero 1
«As a young physician, I was able to compartmentalize illness: it was something that happened to my patients, not to me. I could understand their illnesses, but I never saw myself in their place. I would try to alleviate their suffering, but my primary task was to diagnose and treat their condition. Patients were almost a different species from me: they developed different conditions, and we had different problems.
There was a certain egalitarianism to this approach: all patients were treated equally, no matter how sad their plight. I’d been taught to avoid identifying too much with my patients, for both our sakes. My patients wanted a cool head to be responsible for their treatment, not someone who was as scared and overwhelmed as they were; and I needed the distance from their suffering to be able to face the same situation with the next patient. Empathizing was not considered “professional,” but I think the real reason for avoiding it was that it undermined our defenses against the disappointment of failing in our mission to cure disease».
Neil Berman, “ A Reason to Retire?”, New England Journal of Medecine, 12.10.2023
Pensiero 2
«Pour moi ça a commencé à craquer un jour où je suis entrée dans la salle de restaurant des mes parents. Ma sœur n’était pas née, je devais donc avoir huit ans. C’était avant le service, toutes les tables étaient prêtes. Ma mère était seule, assise à une table, dans la pénombre. Je n’entendais aucun bruit, simplement quelques soupirs, et je me suis approchée d’elle. Et j’ai eu un choc terrible parce que j’ai vu qu’elle pleurait. Le choc était double: que ma mère pleure, d’une part, et deuxièmement, qu’elle pleure sans faire de bruit. Parce que nous, les enfants, quand on pleure, on crie, il y a une manifestation violente. Et ces pleurs silencieux, cachés, ont pris pour moi un sens terrifiant. Ça a été la première couleur du malheur dont j’ai eu conscience».
Jeanne Moreau, Le Monde, 13.10.2023
Pensiero 3
«La mia biblioteca è cambiata nel corso della mia vita, man mano che io stesso cambiavo. Sono cambiati i suoi contenuti, questo è ovvio, da un mese con l’altro e da un anno con l’altro, ed è cambiata anche la sua collocazione fisica mentre conducevo la mia vita itinerante. Ma cosa più importante, è cambiata la sua identità mentre cambiava la mia propria identità come lettore: la mia biblioteca, come ogni biblioteca, è un simbolo dell’appartenenza alla razza umana, il simbolo umanista per eccellenza.
Descrivendo André Gide nel suo libro Two Cheers for Democracy, E. M. Foster afferma che Gide non era un eroe, ma un umanista. “Un umanista”, proseguiva Foster, “ha quattro caratteristiche principali: curiosità, una mente libera, la fede nel buon gusto e nella razza umana”. Come definizione dell’uso comune del termine “umanista”, potrebbe anche andare, ma purtroppo o per fortuna tale termine a sofferto innumerevoli cambiamenti di marea, dato che una prima traccia del suo significato appariva già negli scritti ciceroniani. L’humanitas di Cicerone, radicata nel pensiero greco, richiedeva una combinazione di facoltà per definire l’animale umano: presciente, sagace, complesso, acuto, pieno di memoria, di ragione e di prudenza. Associato principalmente a una prospettiva razionalista, l’umanesimo divenne il pilastro di svariate teorie dell’educazione, sia nel Rinascimento italiano, grazie a luminari come Angelo Poliziano e Marsilio Ficino, sia nel Nord Europa, soprattutto con Erasmo. Più tardi, grazie alla teoria politica dell’Illuminismo e al materialismo del XIX secolo, il termine umanesimo arriverà ad abbracciare ogni area di attività umana, dall’etica religiosa e dall’esistenzialismo all’ateismo e al movimento pacifista».
Alberto Manguel, il Sole 24 Ore, 08.10.2023
Pensiero 4
«A focus wider than the traditional medical concern with an individual patient clarifies that the most relevant measure of resilience to a crisis or stress like this pandemic is wealth — net value of assets minus debts. And the median wealth among White households in the United States ($188,200 in 2019) is 7.8 times that among Black households ($24,100).
These shameful gaps are a consequence of a long history of structural racism, manifested in inequities in housing, education, employment, criminal justice, and public health and health care. In medicine, racism has taken the form of gynecologic surgery performed by J. Marion Sims on enslaved Black women without anesthesia; the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, in which Black men with “bad blood” were promised treatment but instead followed, untreated, for 40 years; the Flexner Report–inspired closing of all but two U.S. medical schools training Black physicians; the exclusion of Black physicians from the American Medical Association for nearly a century; selective sterilization of young Black women as part of the birth control movement; and more discrimination and harm than can be summarized here.4 This history has been transmitted over generations and through lived experience, leading to distrust of health systems and their representatives. Public health experts and medical professionals alike must bear it in mind as they work to improve the health of minority populations and patients by actively supporting equity and building trusting relationships with underserved communities».
Barry Bloom et al., “Fundamentals of Public Health — A New Perspective Series”, New England Journal of Medecine, 05.08.2021
Pensiero 5
«Je ne suis pas palestinien, je ne suis pas porteur de leur douleur, mais je peux avoir de l’empathie, et j’en ai. Je ne supporte de voir un Palestinien chassé de chez lui. En revanche, je sais qu’autour de moi, dans ce monde dit arabe, dans cette armée de libérateurs imaginaires, tout le monde trouve son compte sur le cadavre du Palestinien. Le Palestinien, on l’aime mort, on l’aime saignant, on ne l’aime pas vivant, dans sa complexité, ni dans son autonomie ou son désir de liberté. On le veut délégué pour nos propres assouvissements, pour se venger de la colonisation, pour s’installer dans l’Histoire et la reprendre à la chute de Grenade… Mais, au fond, le Palestinien, c’est le crucifié de notre histoire. J’avais écrit un jour un texte que je n’ai pas publié et qui s’intitulait : ‘Que puisse un jour Dieu libérer la Palestine des libérateurs de la Palestine’».
Kamel Daoud, l’OBS, 26.10.2023
PENSIERI
Brevi approfondimenti, estratti di articoli, citazioni, idee, spunti o semplici annotazioni per riflettere insieme sulle tematiche più dibattute e attuali nel campo delle Medical Humanities.
A cura di Roberto Malacrida