Teaching Doctors to Think by Nuala Kenney - Essay Example

Critical literacy treats not only written material as ‘text’. The ‘text’ includes reading what people say, how the patients act, and becoming emphatic with how they feel. One of Kenney’s points that I agree with is that medicine is not an exact science. Much of it can be treated as sort of an ‘art’. Clinical diagnosis is not the typical ‘problem-solving, but requires doctors to be able to recognize patterns, narrow them down, and—when things don’t seem quite right—take a step backward and review in which part of the process something could have gone wrong with the diagnosis.

With this, I agree that the training in preparation for Medicine should not be the A, B, C, or D type where you select the ‘right’ answer since, in actuality, there is no definite answer. Every patient and situation is unique. The training should cover a wide variety of disciplines including politics, philosophy, and other courses that would allow doctors to become more emphatic with the patient. I agree with Kelley in that the ‘text’ to be read includes not only empirical evidence but also includes the patient-to-physician relationship.

The same disease could mean a different experience for different patients. Good doctors require empathy and should understand the experience of the patient.