CHICAGO, Sept. 27 A study suggests physicians shut off the portion of their brain that helps them appreciate the pain their patients are experiencing.I've said before, we need to know who the 'doctors' are who are 'assisting' in the torture at Gitmo and Abu Gharib. They will melt back into our society and continue their work among us. How would you like to be one of their patients?
Instead, the University of Chicago research indicates physicians activate a portion of the brain connected with controlling emotions during such patient encounters.
Because doctors sometimes have to inflict pain on patients as part of the healing process, they also must develop the ability not to be distracted by the suffering, said Jean Decety, a professor of psychology and psychiatry and co-author of the study.
"They have learned through their training and practice to keep a detached perspective; without such a mechanism, performing their practice could be overwhelming or distressing, and as a consequence impair their ability to be of assistance for their patients" said Decety.
The research that included the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans shows for the first time that people can learn to control such a response.
Friday, September 28, 2007
This also explains how torturers can be indifferent
To the suffering they are causing:
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5 comments:
As long as you avoid dentists who ride motorcycles... Hmm. I've been known to sit in front of one of Mr. Hersh's columns, muttering "Feed me, Seymour!"
As med students are fond of saying, a doc needs to remember whose blood is on the table. But it's another thing altogether to use that necessary insulation to perpetrate horrors. I'd say our government has created quite a little shop of 'em.
I agree, Steve.
I'm aware of the post-war II conundrum whether or not doctors would use the information gathered from the evil experiments at the concentration camps. I believe the decision was not to.
We have people making a study of the torture of others. It's the same thing.
Doctors do not participate in torture, for if they do, they are not doctors.
Concretely: It matters not if Josef Mengele had the training to be a doctor, he was not qualified to be a doctor, because he failed the ethics test.
First, do no harm...
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