Arch Hist Filoz Med. 2000;63(3):97-101.
Archiwum historii i filozofii medycyny
[Article in Polish] M Wałeska-Siempińska
PMID: 11767758
To fulfill its role in the humanization of today's medicine is the correct subjective relationship between doctor and patient, the doctor and society, the teaching of the history of medicine should pay more attention to medicine as an art. This conception carries the ethical message of humanism and humanitarianism towards the patient. The history of medicine as an academic subject focuses mainly on the history of approaches, conceptions, outstanding discoveries in the domain of physiology and anatomy etc. However, I believe that to achieve the aim of humanizing medicine, we should adopt an interdisciplinary approach. Therefore teaching the history of medicine and pharmacy, I try to consider its particular aspects from the philosophical-ethical perspective. In this way the focus of attention shifts to the patient his experience of suffering, his illness and death. What made me choose this perspective was the study of the Polish 19th Century approach to the history and philosophy of medicine, in which the patient and his health was an end in itself.
