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- Page navigation anchor for Healers in HealthcareHealers in HealthcareThis journal has excellent points, and I will pass it on to people that I know. While I am just a nursing student now, I am contemplating maybe going to medical school one of these days, and Egnew et al. couldn't have said it better. I have been contemplating things like this lately, striving to form my philosophy for caring for the patient holistically, as a possible "physician healer". I believe that this can be ap...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.
- Page navigation anchor for Helping Patients Heal by Becoming WholeHelping Patients Heal by Becoming WholeShow More
It has been a great pleasure to read the essays by Thomas R. Egnew on healing throughout the years. His most recent essay on Suffering, Meaning, and Healing: Challenges of Contemporary Medicine, is again one of those pleasures. As they say, Dr. Egnew has “a way with words.”
One of the key issues around healing is its definition, assessment, and measurement. If, as family physicians, we are serious about bring...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Healing and MindfulnessHealing and MindfulnessShow More
Dr. Egnew makes a powerful and eloquent argument for doctors needing to learn to become healers. Despite cultural obstacles, progress is being made.
Our culture is focused on controlling and shaping the environment to our personal benefit. The existential realities of suffering from constant change, aging, sickness and death are relegated to the dark shadows of our life narratives. Hence the shock when we...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Medical students and healingMedical students and healingShow More
Dr Tom Egnew’s most recent article is an excellent addition to an important theme in clinical practice first initiated by Dr Eric Cassell; that of suffering and how to respond to it.(1) Dr Egnew’s thesis is that doctors need to become ‘healers’ as well as being trained in how to ‘cure’, and that becoming a healer may be an antidote to cynicism and burnout in the profession.
Two possible implications are that...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for With Thanks from a Patient AdvocateWith Thanks from a Patient AdvocateShow More
While working to serve a chronically ill population – individuals and families with Rare Disorders – I was given the wonderful opportunity and permission to incorporate many of Dr. Egnew's theories on healing and suffering into my presentations.
This community, isolated by small numbers and lack of research/funding, were often forced into an emotionally lonely journey that contributed to their physical sufferin...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Physicianship RevisitedPhysicianship RevisitedShow More
In this thoughtful and provocative essay, Egnew asks physicians to be both excellent technicians, applying the best that technical biomedicine has to offer, and holistic healers, helping patients create meaning in the midst of their suffering. To use his television metaphor, he is asking us to be Marcus Welby and Gregory House at the same time. Presented in this way, the task seems impossible, particularly to physicians...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for MEDICAL MICHAELANGELOSMEDICAL MICHAELANGELOSShow More
In his letter of 1549, the great Michelangelo perceived his work as a sculptor to be one of “liberating the figure imprisoned in the marble”; this effect is most dramatically and poignantly seen in his sculptures of slaves.
Egnew’s superb distillation raises issues about how physician-healers can maximise their impact in the healing process. The late theologian Henri Nouwen (quoted in Egnew’s paper) introduced...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Some thoughts on Tom Egnew�s paperSome thoughts on Tom Egnew�s paperI like the concept of a physician healer. I would like to see this kind of partnership develop with practitioners and people they partner with in the health care system. But as long as we are "patients" it seems to me that this is an impossible goal. Language in some ways defines the environment. In sociology this word is often used to imply a subordinate-superordinate relationship. In using the word patient to refer to one of t...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.
- Page navigation anchor for PhysicianshipPhysicianshipShow More
When physicians think or say, “There is nothing left to do”; or worse, “I have nothing to offer you” they are mistaken. When cure is no longer possible an opportunity for healing emerges. A physician, of course, cannot heal a patient, but s/he can foster healing through her/his own conscious presence. Another term for this quality of presence is mindfulness. A physician’s mindfulness may facilitate healing in the contex...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Reconciling our roles as both curer and healerReconciling our roles as both curer and healerShow More
Egnew explores the issue of physician as both curer and healer. He describes a healer as one who helps a patient transcend their suffering but does not necessarily effect a cure for an ailment. When a patient is stricken with an incurable illness, so emerges an opportunity for healing. As a physician, I have had plenty of such opportunities.
How does today's doctor reconcile the dual roles of curer and healer?...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Physician-Healers' Example Is Important For StudentsPhysician-Healers' Example Is Important For StudentsShow More
I enjoyed reading Dr. Egnew's article because he identifies a problem that I have struggled with as a medical student, but have rarely heard articulated. As medical students, we spend the vast majority of our time learning about disease and how to effectively treat it. Understanding disease is important, but the focus on this tends to overshadow what we learn about trying to better understand the patient's illness and how...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for reclaiming our soulsreclaiming our soulsShow More
Dr Egnew’s essay is both timely and timeless. Although his references to antiquity are anchored in the Western tradition, the perspective is just as apropos when considering the traditions of other cultures, particularly the shamans of the East and the “medicine men” of Native American Culture.
I was fortunate in my time with the Crow Nation in Montana as an Indian Health Service physician to be included in a nu...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for We need more physician healersWe need more physician healersShow More
As a past patient and caregiver, as an almost certain future patient and caregiver, a family physician for over 35 years and a palliative care physician for 15 years I absolutely endorse what is shared in Egnew’s article. It is the foundation upon which I daily practice my craft as the Director of the Palliative Care Consult Service at the University of Washington Medical Center. If we are not able to train physicians i...
Competing Interests: None declared.