University of Michigan Medical and Nursing School - Aequanimitas Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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MEDICINE - A PRIVILEGE? Pursuing medical science and art can be a con- fining occupation. The Renaissance man might well have cringed at the task of becoming a doctor todayg for as each fundamental medical science is added to the student's repertory, the walls rise higher and the light grows dim. Political and philosophical discussion, theological inquiry, art, music-all be- come things foreign, if not inferior, to Hour way of life. Doctors, because of their special knowledge, often consider themselves as men apart-and per- haps, sadly enough, this is true. We, too often, are apart from those important discussions that precede and influence legislative action. We often are painfully unaware of historical precedent for our pressing social and economic problems and thus, poorly equipped to discuss and solve them wisely. We tend to limit our associations to those of our profession, Our leisure talk seldom strays beyond the perimeter of our narrow medical interests-and when it does, we are distinctly ill at ease, if not completely bored. X To say this is the price we gladly pay forthe privilege of becoming doctors is to evade the point entirely. The privilege of being a doctor derives not simply from artfully wielding the heal- ing hand. lt is more than this. Medicine, by its very nature, intimately touches every aspect of man's existence. Concern, therefore, with man's bodily function cannot be isolated from concern for his total nature. The f'privilege, thus, rightly accrues not to those who pay the price of dis- regard, but to those who assume the added burden of being a knowledgeable, active member of society. Thomas V. Abowd '63