The Clinical Encounter

Abstract

As mentioned in the introduction, we will begin this work by providing a historical sketch of medicine in the Western world. For obvious reasons, it will not be possible, in the context of this book, to present a comprehensive survey of the development of the theory and practice of medicine in the West. Nor is this my aim. I will not even mention most of the physicians and scientists whose great discoveries resulted in the examination and treatment methods which characterize modern medicine today. I will instead focus upon medical practice: the way physicians and patients get and got together in what is usually referred to as the ‘clinical encounter’ or ‘consultation’ — what I will often call the ‘medical meeting’. The theories and techniques of medical science, however, as we will see, certainly have had an impact upon that meeting, and from that point of view they will also be dealt with here.

‘In pathology the first word historically speaking and the last word logically speaking comes back to clinical practice.’⁷