Medicine

Technology and the Creation of the Docile Physician

Posted on April 21, 2015April 20, 2015 by Tom Peteet

Discipline is no longer simply an art of distributing bodies, of extracting time from them and accumulating it, but of composing forces in order to obtain an efficient machine. – Foucault, Disci... Read More

A Call for Irony

Posted on June 3, 2014June 2, 2014 by Tom Peteet

“My entire existence is really the deepest irony.” Søren Kierkegaard “The value of irony, when it is deployed well, is that it opens up the possibility of hearing an internal call to goo... Read More

Medicine and Moral Conflict in Botswana

Posted on May 19, 2014May 19, 2014 by Tom Peteet

The ride from Gaborone to the hospital in Molepolole starts in the dark. By the time the sun rises, we are onto Donkey Road, a 40km drag that lives up to its name of scattered donkeys, pensively explo... Read More

Beyond a Corporate Model of Healthcare (Part I)

Posted on February 24, 2014February 23, 2014 by Tom Peteet

As a resident physician, I find it interesting that the most prominent public role models for medical humanism are all dead: Maimodedes, William Carlos Williams and Oliver Wendell Holmes come to mind ... Read More

The Hidden Values of Medical Training

Posted on October 30, 2011November 2, 2011 by Tom Peteet

One of the most cited adages of my medical training has been William Osler’s famous quip: “the secret of caring for the patient is in caring for the patient.” For those not in the medical field,... Read More

Proposed Circumcision Ban is Bad for Religion and Medicine

Posted on July 8, 2011July 5, 2011 by Joshua Stanton

Critics of circumcision regularly hurl insults at the ancient practice. Calling circumcision “male genital mutilation” has become trendy, while calling it a “sacred ritual” or ... Read More