Otolaryngology: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Medicine is a science because it is based on knowledge gained through careful study and experimentation. It is an art because it depends on how skillfully doctors and other medical workers apply this knowledge when dealing with patients. Scientific truths are not true for all times, unlike truths in the field of the art of medicine in science. Todayâ�?�?s truth may be tomorrowâ�?�?s folly. The half-life of truth in medicine is short. The art is not merely part of the â�?�?medical humanitiesâ�? but is integral to medicine as an applied science, which requires what he calls a â�?�?doctrine of standard empiricismâ�?. Applied science is nothing but the application of pure science to particular classes of problems. No one can safely make these deductions unless he or she has a firm grasp of the principles. Yet the idea of the practice of clinical medicine as an art persists. The art of medicine remains the same and is the strong foundation of practice. It is permanent and has evolved through the centuries based on human values and intuition. Its thrust is to allay anxiety in the minds of patients and to console them under all circumstances. All kinds of doctors ranging from the quacks to the best trained modern practitioners have been equally effective in society if they had human qualities of head and heart required to encourage the patientsâ�?�? own healing power? Even in the villages, quacks, without any scientific training, provide care to the needy. Still people accept them; they are available and kind to the sick. The art of caring and comfort, guided by millennia of common sense as well as a more recent systematic approach to medical ethics, remains the cornerstone of medicine without these humanistic qualities the application of modern science of â�?�?medicineâ�? is sub-optimal, useless, even detrimental. The connection between doctor and patient is at the heart of medicine.

Biography

Email: alsfakia@gmail.com