Doctors, Nurses & Other Callings ($)
How do we see these professions, and how do they see themselves?
“Let me congratulate you on the choice of calling which offers you the choice of intellectual and moral interests found in no other profession.”
— Sir William Osler, MD
Doctors
Who is a good doctor? Doctor Dolittle and Doctor Livingston, I presume. Why are they good? Because they provide service. Who is a bad doctor? Doctor Jekyll and Doctor Frankenstein. Why? Because they worked for themselves.
This seems to be how we judge doctors, as evidenced by literature, the mouthpiece of culture. Given the role doctors are now playing, we might reconsider this.
The lesson of Doctors Jekyll and Frankenstein is that doctors make bad scientists. Is this true? Is the problem with the doctors or the scientists, or what you get when you combine them?
These villainous doctors were using their skills to go beyond health and, in doing so, created violations of humanity. Their creations, Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein’s monster, were reflections of themselves. They were their dark sides to which they were blind, in the case of Mr. Hyde, or overly devoted.
Doctors Livingston and Dolittle lived in the service of their patients. They improved lives and built communities. They did not create new biological inventions, and they did not unleash dark energies. Livingston and Dolittle are heroes; Jekyll and Frankenstein are villains.
Nurses
One can hardly imagine nurses labouring over bubbling retorts and Erlenmeyer flasks in castles on the hill. Before it became a profession, nursing was likely to attract grifters and undertakers. Literature has given us few characters to compare. This is partly because, before there were doctors, there weren't nurses. Providing comfort and support was a charity or family obligation.
Jenny Fields, a nurse and leading character in John Irving’s 1978 novel, The World According to Garp, reflected both archaic and modern attitudes about nursing. As nursing emerged as a more respected profession, women emerged as a more respected class. The World According to Garp confounded nursing, motherhood, gender, and equality.
Florence Nightingale reformed nursing in the early 19-century. Nightingale was on a spiritual crusade, not a program of professional reform, although that’s what she accomplished.
While she wasn't the sole voice of reform, it's largely due to her that the number of nursing schools grew from 3 in 1873 to almost 600 by the beginning of the 20th century. She's now recognized as much for her work for patient rights, hygiene, and the use of statistics, all of which play a role in modern nursing.
Doctor John Campbell is a modern nurse. The nursing profession is no longer limited to women, and Doctor Campbell’s doctorate is in nursing. Campbell came to public prominence with the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 as a daily, trusted voice teaching, clarifying, and analyzing health care facts, mandates, and statistics.
Campbell continues to post daily broadcasts on his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9IOB2TExg3QIBupFtBDxg, but he's now taking a more activist role. He's concluded that we're not being given the full story, and that some government mandates are contrary to the facts. Where his role as a nurse began supporting people and policies, he now declares that some policies are not supported by evidence, and, in true nursing fashion, he is supporting the evidence over the policies where he sees them conflict.
Campbell has been reformed by poor practice along lines reminiscent of Nightingale. However, unlike Nightingale, policy makers are not accepting Campbell's illuminations. We would like to believe we're more medically enlightened than we were 200 hundred years ago. In some areas we certainly are. But in the area of policy that's consistent with the evidence, we're not.
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