FINAL PROJECT: Abstract and Reader's Reponse > Benefit of Medical Humanities from Greek Myth on the Medical Practitioner
YES, you found a way to make this information more attractive to the busy reader. I also think that knowing detail about a field (a beloved and demanding field, at that) can help the neo-doc establish the insider ethos of medicine.
Looking forward to this and hope I can share with medical humanities students in the fall.
May 13, 2019 |
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Medicine goes back centuries, but a lot of that history is not known to modern medical practitioners or people preparing to become medical practitioners. The history of medicine that can be found in ancient Greek myths has influenced medicine today in innumerable ways and knowing those ways can help one become a better, more well-rounded doctor. This document will explore and explain the different influences that myth has had on medicine throughout the years as well as explaining why it is useful to know. The sections will include the origin of disease names, medical symbols, and the fathers of medicine and how they were influenced by medical myths. The names of diseases frequently come from names in myth, with one example being the origin of the word “venereal” coming from the word Venus which is the Roman name for Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sex. Not only do words come from myth, but symbols of different parts of medicine do as well. The Caduceus is a universal sign of medicine, but it actually should be the Rod of Asclepius as this is related to mythical medicine when the Caduceus is not. Additionally, the founders of medicine, including Hippocrates, were influenced by these myths so to understand their history is to understand the history of myth.
WC: 216
Reader’s Profile: A new doctor or potential doctor that does not see the relevance of myths to medicine but wants to sound knowledgeable around more experienced doctors who might know and talk about these topics.
Reader’s Response: I know that learning Latin is helpful to knowing and understanding common words used in medicine, so it makes sense that medicine is influenced a great deal by the same time period and stories of ancient Greece. I guess while I’m learning Latin, I can also take the time to learn some myths. It’s not like I need to spend a lot of time memorizing these stories since I would not need to be an expert when I am supposed to be an expert on how the human body works. It could be a nice break from studying to hear some stories.