{"id":700,"date":"2017-10-06T16:21:46","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T15:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottishmedicalhumanities.org\/human\/?p=700"},"modified":"2018-04-22T22:31:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T21:31:44","slug":"an-amazing-murmur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottishmedicalhumanities.org\/human\/an-amazing-murmur\/","title":{"rendered":"An amazing murmur"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the other side of the ward, there’s that ‘amazing murmur’ – the mitral stenosis, who lies coughing up pink frothy phlegm into a stained handkerchief. He’s in his mid forties, and his face and body are swollen with oedema.<\/p>\n

A framed picture of his two little children stands on the bedside table, smiling at him from a beach somewhere, but he’s too ill to smile back at them. There’s a tiny vase of flowers, a bottle of guava juice, a Bible, and a neat tract of paperback books beside him. A small bespectacled woman in a floral dress sits quietly at the bedside reading a religious tract.<\/p>\n

No matter how hard one looks, there’s no scarred narrowed heart valve in sight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From An amazing murmur of the heart; feeling the patient’s beat <\/em>by Cecil Helman<\/p>\n

Commentary<\/h3>\n

The extract highlights a dangerous potential gulf between a clinical\/mechanical view of a diagnosis, and the patient’s experience of illness and disease. We must understand both.<\/p>\n

An amazing murmur of the heart; feeling the patient’s beat<\/em> is the title of Cecil Helman’s short book of memoirs and stories from his time as a doctor in South Africa and the UK. He was a medical student at Groote Schuur Hospital in South Africa in the 1960s. Subsequently he became a London GP, and then Professor of Medical Anthropology at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Suburban Shaman: Tales from Medicine’s frontline<\/em> is an account of his medical school experience during apartheid, and early medical experiences.<\/p>\n

More info<\/h3>\n