Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

These days we’ve been hearing a heck of a lot about doctoring.

Steadily coming our way are reports about the surging virus pandemic, possible treatments, and progress regarding vaccines. There are disturbing reports about doctors over prescribing pain medications, leading to numerous addictions and overdoses. We’ve been hearing about doctors, when prescribing antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, failing to inform patients that their effectiveness are more and more being questioned in the research literature, and once starting these drugs, many patients find that when they decide to come off of them, the withdrawal experience can be awful. On the more positive side, a recent heartwarming story told of the Nobel Prize in Medicine being jointly awarded to Drs. Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton, and Charles M. Rice for their discoveries about the hepatitis C virus which has led to effective treatments.

With so many doctoring issues front and center in the media, it seems to me that it is worthwhile to take a few minutes to reflect upon the profession. A question particularly relevant to this blog is, what especially leads to a doctor being respected?

As regular readers to this blog know, when I want to take a few minutes to enrich a topic, I often look to see if Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan explored this topic on one of his Theme Time Radio Hour shows. This has worked well, for his show is so much fun, and I receive a great deal of positive feedback whenever I do this.

Well, it just so happens that Bob’s episode 69 is on doctors, so let’s see what it has to offer. You can listen to that episode for free by clicking HERE.

Bob’s Episode on Doctors

Bob begins his show with some cool jazzy piano playing and then he tells us:

Welcome back to Theme Time Radio Hour. Put the apples away for we’re not trying to keep the doctors away this week. A matter of fact we’re gonna invite them in, ‘cause for the next hour, we’re gonna discuss that noble occupation of the followers of Hippocrates. 

The first song Bob plays for us is “Dear Doctor,” by the Rolling Stones. It’s about a guy none too happy about getting married. Here’s some of the lyrics:

Oh help me, please doctor, I’m damaged
There’s a pain where there once was a heart
It’s sleepin’, it’s a beatin’
Can’t ya please tear it out, and preserve it
Right there in that jar?

At the end of the song, the guy solves his problem without the doctor’s help. He simply leaves a note for the woman he was to marry. As the lyrics explain, the letter read:

“Darlin’, I’m sorry to hurt you
But I’ve no courage to speak to your face
But I’m down in Virginia with your cousin Lou
There’ll be no wedding today”

It’s interesting that in this song the narrator cries out for help from a doctor, despite never seeking out a doctor to get him through his predicament. It reminds me of how many people I know will automatically cry, “Dear God, help me,” whenever they’re in a tough jam.

This connection between doctors and God comes about, I think, from the association of both apparently being capable of performing miracles. A “miracle” is a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency. But, is it wise to put doctors on the same level as God? Is that too much respect to put on anyone? Hmmmm.

Moving along, Bob next goes into a little history. He tells us,

The first doctors can be seen in ancient cave paintings, some of them thousands of years old. They show men in animal masks performing ritual dances.

As towns and villages became more complex, bone setters and healing priests became part of society. In ancient Mesopotamia, a whole clinical system was created, based on a framework of omens, and divinations.

From Bob’s little history, we see that for many centuries, healing was often bound up with religious practices. Healers would seek to draw upon the favors of their God or Gods using a variety of rituals.

However, somewhere between the fifth and third centuries BC, some Greek physicians, such as Hippocrates, practiced healing as an art, and began separating themselves from pure religious practices. Their approach included surgery and adjusting dietary regimens. However, they were required to take a religious oath that began:

I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.

The oath included principles of confidentiality and to do no harm. Its last sentence is,

Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever an excellent reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.”

As we can plainly see from this, respect was an important desire even way back then.

A little later in the show, Bob tells us,

Some doctors are more diligent than others, not all just pill peddling quacks. Some actually care, and even look at the big picture, like Jonas Salk. 

Jonas Salk

In the 1950s, a lot of parents had become frightened in the summertime. This is when children by the thousands would become infected with the crippling disease of polio. Dr. Jonas Salk eliminated that fear forever when he developed a vaccine for the disease. He never patented it, instead distributed it freely so the whole world could benefit from its discovery. Are you listening Pfizer?

That little snippet from the show reveals a truckload of insight regarding what Bob respects and disrespects about folks in the medical profession.

Midway through the show, Bob tells us,

I went to the Farmers Market with John Cusack, and he has some opinions about today’s subject.

At this point we hear Cusack’s voice relating to us the following,

John Cusack

My feeling about doctors is a little complicated because, especially here in the west, I’m not sure about any of them actually interested in healing anyone, but it makes me think of an old thing I saw on stage a long time ago. A patient walks into a doctor’s office. He says, “Doctor, I’m feeling sick,” and the doctor hits him with a right cross, and, um, the patient says, “Why did you do that?” And the doctor says, “Because I’m a doctor.” The patient says, “Perfect!” willing to accept any abusive brutality as long as it comes from an authority figure.

Bob, sounding astonished, replies, “Thanks John. Well, that’s something to mull over.” John’s story reveals a little of his thoughts about what some doctors are doing these days that leads to a loss of respect. This blog has been expressing particularly concerned about the pills being prescribed by psychiatrists (see, for example, HERE and HERE). There benefits have been hugely exaggerated, there side-effects and other risks have been awfully minimized, and when people try to get off of them, many discover the withdrawal reactions lead to problems worse than the reasons they initially chose to begin treatment.

As Bob’s show begins to come to a close, Bob tells us,

A lot of people have no faith in medicine. Some just don’t trust doctors, some just believe in alternative medicines, and some religious groups don’t believe modern medicine can help cure an illness. Christian Scientists believe the only cure comes from prayer. I’m all for that, but I believe doctors are very knowledgable and keep their feet firmly in the present.

If push comes to shove, and you find yourself wanting to find someone who could do what the doctor couldn’t, here’s the “The Five Blind Boys From Mississippi” doing “You Done What the Doctor Couldn’t do.”  

The song sounds like an old spiritual, and a few of the lyrics are just that,

Lord, Lord, Oh Lord.
Oh Lord, I know you done
What the doctor couldn’t do.
Oh, I know, you done what the doctor couldn’t do.

Lord, when I was sick,
Oh lord, I couldn’t get well.
But Oh lord you healed my body
And I’m not ashamed to tell.

After the song, Bob tells us,

Everyone will give you different medical advice. People tell you what to eat, what medicine to take, how to avoid illness, how to cure illness. But if you want to know the truth for me is that we’re all gonna go. All you can do is try to make it as interesting as possible.

Then Bob plays for us someone saying to doctors,

Whatever your field in medicine, you’re caught up in the most fundamental battle of mankind. It is you and life against disease and death. The techniques have become so familiar to you that your hands goes about them almost automatically., but never your mind, and never your heart.

Bob’s concluding words on the show are,

Voltaire

That’s all the time we have for today, but in the meantime, remember what Voltaire said, “Medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”  

Conclusion

Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

In the above, the view that doctoring is a noble profession that teams up with life to battle disease and death was put forth. Maintaining confidentiality and to first do no harm was mentioned as part of the Hippocratic oath.

At one point, we discussed folks who put doctors on the same level as God or Gods. During Bob’s show, I got the distinct impression that he isn’t one of those folks. He did say that doctors are knowledgeable and they tend to keep their feet firmly in the present, which I got the impression, he respects. However, he views many as pill peddling quacks, and he raised the issue of the greed of the pharmaceutical companies, an aspect of the world of medicine which, it seems to me, he looks upon with disdain.

So, there you have it, a little reflection on the doctoring profession. Until you join us once again right here at From Insults To Respect, may all of your doctoring experiences be all that you hope for, and may you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Bob Dylanmedical practicerespect for doctors