Medical Humanities Companion, Volume 3

This third volume in the Companion to Medical Humanities series considers the concept of treatment as an active process which produces an outcome, be it effective, inappropriate or inadequate. It invites the reader to examine the relevance of the patients' belief in any given treatment and their confidence in the practitioner. Against a person-cent

Pekka Louhiala, Iona Heath, John Saunders

About the editors and authors. Introduction. Acknowledgement. Playing God (poem by Glenn Colquhoun). The patients' stories. On treatment and its effects. Wonderful treatment. Treatment - a matter between subjects. Deciding on treatment. Paternalism, power and autonomy. Symptoms without disease: territory without a map. The paradox of placebo - real and sham in medicine. Considering the alternatives or Who is the medicine man? Boldness and temperance in treatment. Index.