“The Trouble With Medicine’s Metaphors” by Dhruv Khullar is talking about the use of military metaphors in medicine. Metaphors, and word in general are very powerful when used to describe an illness because most of the time, it is a new, scary and hard thing to wrap your head around. Military terms have been used along side with medicine and illness. They say that associating illness with military can cause negative connotations. Now the thought has been that it is ultimatley how the patient interprets the meaning. If the patients takes the “fight” as a challenge and an opportunity for growth, the military terms may actually be helpful. The words used to describe your illness can only have a negative effect if the patient lets them have a negative effect.
I personally am a strong believer in that the key to the way we understand and interpret things around us is our mindset. It is nicely stated in Khullar’s text as “I moved on to a new medical service a few days after that morning I deemed my patient a fighter. I don’t know how she ultimately fared, or whether she came to see her illness as a battle, journey, marathon, rollercoaster, chess match—or none of the above. But I do know it wasn’t my decision to make”. To me this is saying as a health professional, I will give you the information, I will tell you how it is but how you receive that information and how you go from there is all up to you and your mindset.
In James Geary’s Ted Talk “Metaphorically Speaking” he says “…whenever we deal with anything abstract — ideas, emotions, feelings, concepts, thoughts — we inevitably resort to metaphor”. I liked this quote because it links well with Khullar’s text. When diagnosing someone with an illness, it is abstract and unfamiliar so to make them understand better, health care professionals tend to use metaphors. It is an easy way to connect what is happening in the inner working of the body to something that you are familiar with.
In “See Through Words” Micheal Erard writes “There was a problem: people valued the orchid and looked down upon the dandelion”. This is an example of how mindset can effect the outcome. People associate the dandelion with weeds so they look down on, so when the kids are compared to the dandelion they do not turn out as well as those who are values as ‘rare orchids’.
You write: ” personally am a strong believer in that the key to the way we understand and interpret things around us is our mindset. It is nicely stated in Khullar’s text as “I moved on to a new medical service a few days after that morning I deemed my patient a fighter. I don’t know how she ultimately fared, or whether she came to see her illness as a battle, journey, marathon, rollercoaster, chess match—or none of the above. But I do know it wasn’t my decision to make”. To me this is saying as a health professional, I will give you the information, I will tell you how it is but how you receive that information and how you go from there is all up to you and your mindset.”
Are you saying that the most important metaphors are the personal metaphors we carry around with us (i.e. our mindset)? This is a fantastic angle. With a little more development (for example, adding what you believe to be the result of this “fact” on people’s health), you could transform this angle into a strong thesis.