DOCTOR INTERVIEW

Doctor Interview



Doctor Interview

Ideally considered, this basis is philanthropia, the "love of man," because, according to a famous saying, "Where there is love of man, philanthropia, there is love of the art [of healing], philotechnia" (Hippocrates, Praeceptiones, L.IX, 258). Of course, this saying belongs to a later, post-Stoic period; but the study of much earlier medical texts, such as the Epidemias, gives grounds for the belief that the Hippocratics, as they were called, practiced philanthropia before the word was invented. In any case, the "love of man" of ancient Greece was the same as "love of nature," of the divine physis, as is specifically and individually realized in the name given to the subject in question: physiophilia. It is not necessary to add that less noble interests, such as love of money and thirst for fame, in practice often obscured this ethical and technical ideal of "physiological philanthropy" as the basis of the therapeutic relationship.

As scientific and effective "knowledge" was the first premise of the technical concept of medicine, the therapeutic relationship required—as it has of doctors since—that the Greek physician should reach a diagnosis by rational means. During the period in the history of medicine here called "ancient scientific," this diagnostic activity appears to have consisted of (1) a fourfold desire to discover whether the illness is determined by an insuperable and necessary cause (kat'ananken) or by some controllable contingency (katà tychen); to identify the typical form (tropos, eidos) of the suffering; to determine its causes, both remote and immediate (aitia, prophasis); and to establish a well-founded prognosis; (2) a series of exploratory maneuvers (anamnesis, study of the surroundings, examination of the patient's body by means of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste); and (3) adequate inductive reasoning (logismos).

After some deliberation, the therapeutic activity of the Greek doctor was subjected to the following rules: (1) to help the patient, or at least to do no harm to the patient (Hippocrates, Epidemias, I, L.II, 634); (2) to refrain from interfering if the illness were incurable and inevitably mortal, because in that case the doctor, by intervening, would commit the sin of hybris, or rebellion against an edict of the divine and sovereign physis; and (3) insofar as possible, to attack the cause of the disease therapeutically. Diet, drugs, surgery, and to a lesser degree "psychotherapy" were the four great healing methods of ancient medicine.

People often ask me what I'm personally doing to try to get well, and stay well, with my own thyroid condition. As part of my almost two decade-long mission to serve as an advocate for my fellow thyroid patients -- I have Hashimoto's disease and hypothyroidism -- I've had the opportunity to interview many doctors and present their ideas here on the website and in my books. I realized recently, however, that in all the time that I've been writing and interviewing doctors, I've committed a major oversight. I never interviewed my own doctor, Kate Lemmerman!

I've been a patient of Lemmerman, who is in private practice in ...