Superficially, Canadians and other denizens of prosperous countries have an enviable relationship with doctors and medicine. We believe that science has clearly described most diseases, that doctors can diagnose them and that we can be cured of them.
Most of us would be surprised to learn that many ailments are culturally determined. Not all societies think obesity is a disease, and many are mystified at our attempts to “cure” failing memory and stiff joints in 80-year-olds. Many deaf people insist that they are just one kind of normal person.
And then there is the reassuring authority that separates the medical profession and the rest of us. If my bowels are disturbed, it comforts me to hear the doctor say I am suffering from irritable bowel syndrome. If I carry a burden of inexplicable exhaustion, how sweet to hear of chronic fatigue syndrome.
The doctor is very aware that he or she has little idea what causes these symptoms. The doctor...
Ray Conlogue is a former arts writer for The Globe and Mail and author of The Longing for Homeland in Canada and Quebec (Mercury Press, 1996), an analysis of the cultural and historical dimensions of Quebec’s independence movement, as well as being a translator, teacher and author of a young adult novel.
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