Medicine as an Art Form

What happens when doctors don’t know it all?

They seek to learn more.

Find out why it’s important that physicians keep learning by watching our Truth in Two.

Dr. Mark Eckel is Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University. Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website) and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

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“This is where science becomes an art.” Whenever a medical doctor says her work verges into artwork my ears perk up. Las summer I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, what I came to discover is a common malady. My exceptional endocrinologist immediately eased the symptoms with medicine. But the meds had to be modulated – when and how much to take, was the issue for my body. That’s when I heard the phrase, sometimes, “science become an art.

We live in a place and time where physicians are doing great work. I was so thankful to feel better with the right pharmaceuticals. But the application, the exactitude of complete wholeness, can be elusive. Some of the most renown doctors and researchers are, at times, left scratching their heads. Knowledge continues to double daily, but the use of that knowledge can be a mystery. Medical surgeon and author Atul Gawande says in his book Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science

We look for medicine to be an orderly field of knowledge and procedure. But it is not. It is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information, fallible individuals, and at the same time lives on the line. There is science in what we do, yes, but also habit, intuition, and sometimes plain old guessing. The gap between what we know and what we aim for persists. And this gap complicates everything we do.

Ancient proverbial wisdom is a guide for modern medicine Proverbs 10.14, says, “The wise store up knowledge.” The Hebrew word for “store” suggests “seeking.” No matter our vocation, we continue searching but sometimes the application of what we learn is hard to practice. Here Proverbs 15.7 speaks more truth: the wise person also spreads knowledge, feeling responsible to disperse her mastery to benefit the whole community. My doctor is right to acknowledge that she continues to learn, for which I, and countless others, are grateful. For the Comenius Institute, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.

 MORE from Atul Gawande

I have divided the book into three sections.  The first examines the fallibility of doctors…The second focuses on mysteries and unknowns of medicine…The third and final section then centers on uncertainly itself.  For what seems most vital and interesting is not how much we in medicine know but how much we don’t—and how we might grapple with that ignorance more wisely.