Practitioner

“ Consequently, the practitioner who not only sees clearly the objects most desirable to accomplish, but who most judiciously selects and adjusts the means or agents he uses to the special conditions of each patient, will meet with the highest degree of clinical success. ”

“ The physician who is not also a scholar may be a more or less successful practitioner, but his influence will be confined, his methods mechanical and his interests narrow. The doctor, the lawyer and the minister of religion can do but inferior work, unless to a knowledge of their several sciences they bring the insight, the wide outlook, and the confidence which nothing but intimate acquaintance with the best that has been thought and said can confer. ”

“ For the last quarter-century there have been scattered groups of physicians,—brilliant, patient pioneers,—who, recognizing man as spirit inhabiting body, have explored the realm of man's mind and charted its paths. These pioneers, beginning with Charcot, have been men of acknowledged scientific training and spirit, whose word must be respected and whose success in treating functional troubles stands out in sharp contrast to the fumblings of the average practitioner in this field. ”

“ PHYSICIAN. “Every medical practitioner, whether he desires to have it or not, has a cure of souls as well as of bodies. He is literally an inheritor of some of the duties of the very apostles, and called to be an imitator of the Lord Jesus Christ.”31 Now, as no sphere could be named where Religion is confessedly more required, let us consider it for a little in connection with the Medical Profession. ”

“ These are the aims of the modern practitioner—not so much the alleviation of symptoms as the removal of the morbid state—not soothing his patient, but saving his life. That he is capable of doing this by studying pathology and disregarding the authority of the ancients is no longer a matter of opinion, but is positively demonstrated, by attending to the other principle, which also is not referred to by Dr. ”

“ At each visit on his round, the practitioner finds himself concerned with a particular, self-contained group of phenomena which he must consider at the moment with the utmost concentration, but which he must instantly dismiss from his mind as he moves on to the next case. ”

“ "I never understood what common sense meant applied to complicated problems--unless it means that a general practitioner can perform a better operation than a specialist." ”

“ The great Sir Everard Home used to say, ‘A general practitioner should either have a very good manner, or a very bad one.’ Now, in the latter case, he must be possessed of talents and acquirements sufficient to ensure his being sought after, whatever his manner might be. ”

“ General practitioner, a physician who devotes himself to general practice rather than to special diseases; General principle, a principle to which there are no exceptions within its range of application ”

“ Thus it so often happens that the general practitioner pursues old methods of treatment which science has long since replaced with others, acknowledged to be superior. The specialist, on the contrary, by confining his studies and researches to one class of diseases only, is enabled to inform himself thoroughly and accurately on all the improvements made in the methods and means of practice in his special department. ”

“ In our opinion, the colours in which the results of the operation are there painted are far too rosy. The practitioner who has before him the task of satisfying a client as to what will or what will not be the results of an operation he has suggested will do well to weigh each side of the argument carefully, and endeavour in his explanation to strike the happy mean. ”

“ There is another profession, to the members of which, I think, a certain preliminary knowledge of physical science might be quite as valuable as to the medical man. The practitioner of medicine sets before himself the noble object of taking care of man's bodily welfare ”

“ I am quite satisfied that as far as the merits or demerits of an education contribute to the position of a profession, we may take ours as we find it, and yet hold our own. Nevertheless, lest the position given to medicine by its pre-eminent prominence, in conjunction with the church and bar, as one of the so-called learned professions, should encourage the idea that a multiplicity of accomplishments should be the character of a full and perfect medical practitioner, one or two important realities in respect to our position should be indicated. ”

“ The second, with the ruddy face and the merry brown eyes, is a general practitioner, a man of vast experience, who, with his three assistants and his five horses, takes twenty-five hundred a year in half-crown visits and shilling consultations out of the poorest quarter of a great city. ”

“ The general practitioner, who attends one patient at a time, must know something of the sick man’s habits, environment and psychic condition. The health physician in primitive countries has these problems multiplied by thousands. ”

“ And when you quit this scene of your early labours to assume the responsibility of medical practitioners, take heed lest you allow the anxieties of life to lead you astray from the path you have chosen. Call to mind the good advice you have received within these walls, and act on it steadily and consistently. Remember that your success depends greatly upon your character, and not merely on attaining a particular grade in the profession. ”

“ And this is what the physician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists: for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body, and how to satisfy them or not; and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to convert one into the other; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is a skilful practitioner. ”

“ How much better it would be, if the practitioner does not see fit to call in a competent consultant, to prescribe a suitable agent to be given internally, and to recommend complete rest for the subject. ”

“ In countless other ways the same fact is shown. Half a century ago a youth who desired to become a lawyer or a doctor entered the office of a practitioner and learned his profession by practise and experience. ”

“ The enlightened practitioner will, so far as science and experience can guide him, lean to the use of the former class of remedies as most intelligible in their operation, more manageable under varying circumstances, and, on these accounts, more certain in their results ”

“ Medicine is a liberal profession, and those admitted into its ranks should found their expectations of practice upon the extent of their qualifications, not on intrigue or artifice.
§ 2. A physician, in his intercourse with a patient under the care of another practitioner, should observe the strictest caution and reserve. No meddling inquiries should be made; no disingenuous hints given relative to the nature and treatment of his disorder; nor any course of conduct pursued that may directly or indirectly tend to diminish the trust reposed in the physician employed. ”

“ Doctor, are you sending your patients off to specialists for tonsil removal or to sanitoriums for electric, etc., treatment? If so, you are losing the chance to show yourself one of the distinguished{154} powers in the domain of medical advancement in your locality, and losing a lot of big fees. Don’t you WANT to be a high-class practitioner? ”

“ Practitioner, prak-tish′un-ėr, n. one who practises or is engaged in the exercise of any profession, esp. medicine or law.—General practitioner, one who practises in all the branches of medicine and surgery. [Older form practician—O. Fr. practicien.]
Practive, prak′tiv, adj. directly tending towards action.
Prad, prad, n. a horse in thieves' cant.
Præ-. ”

“ In securing such a result there will be needed medical practitioners who are imbued with the ideals of preventive medicine in its widest sense. Let me, in this connection quote the following extract from a recent official report of my own:
There is needed a reconstruction of the training of each medical student, which will make preventive medicine in its widest sense an integral part of his training, and will insure that before he begins practice he has definite instruction in the application of the whole of his knowledge to preventive purposes. ”

“ What shall we think of professed practitioners of medicine, if, in the words of Jahr, “from ignorance, for their personal convenience, or through charlatanism, they treat their patients one day Homoeopathically and the next Allopathically;” if they parade their pretended new science before the unguarded portion of the community; if they suffer their names to be coupled with it wherever it may gain a credulous patient ”

“ In addition to the regular practitioners, who are a really useful class, and know something of their profession, and the nature and power of certain medicines, there are others who devote their talents to some speciality. ”

“ Changed as our relationship to the community may be in some respects XXby the translation of many of the brightest and best of our cult into the ranks of the specialist, it is still and always will be the general practitioner who is looked up to as "the physician," and by his work in professional and private life our profession will be judged. ”

“ Before the student is aware of what he has acquired, he has learned the aspects and course and probable issue of the diseases he has seen with his teacher, and the proper mode of dealing with them, so far as his master knows it. On the other hand, our ex cathedra prelections have a strong tendency to run into details which, however interesting they may be to ourselves and a few of our more curious listeners, have nothing in them which will ever be of use to the student as a practitioner. ”

“ There is something striking in the kind of professional air with which the duty is undertaken. The spiritual physician, called in from a distance, approves the treatment of the local practitioners, just as a physician of the body might do. ”

“ Fortunately, during this period the practical character of the clinical instruction given in the better colleges fitted the graduates in some measure for the actual necessities of practice, while the good traditions of medicine as a learned profession stimulated those who adopted it as a career, so that in the main the body of practitioners deserved and held the confidence and respect of the community. ”

“ It is often the case, that, while a physician, of whom his brethren have an exalted opinion, meets with but little favor from the community; another, who is a very ordinary practitioner, and who is so considered by the profession at large, has an extensive practice, and a high popular reputation. Such a physician may be treated with much outward deference by his medical brethren, on account of the position in which the public favor has placed him ”

“ He thus became by successive degrees a leading consultant in a great metropolis, a well-read scientific physician, an acceptable teacher, and a pathologist to a grade rarely found in the ranks of our general practitioners. ”

“ So in medicine, the great majority of practitioners retain the same doctrines and pursue the same practice which they learned in the schools, or, if changing both doctrine and practice, as time and fashion dictate, hold fast, at least, the great fundamental doctrine impressed upon the very core of their professional hearts—viz., that the interference of Art is essential in all cases, and therefore never to be foregone. ”

“ There are more than three hundred and fifty practitioners of the law, in this city. In this, as in the medical profession, there are, and ever will be, ex necessitate rei, infernal scoundrels, and highly intelligent and honorable men—blind guides and safe counsellors. ”

“ To this latter class, nearly all men belong, who are more engaged in practical pursuits than in speculative ones. Among them, are the ordinary practitioners, whether in medicine or in any other department, extremely few of whom are willing to break up trains of thought to which they are inured. ”

“ The majority of medical students and practitioners may consider a simple exercise of common sense in the application of their general professional knowledge to the elucidation of problems of medico-legal import all that is requisite, and that no special training is necessary for the purpose. ”

“ Perhaps the most interesting feature of this maintenance of extremely low standards in medical education, however, is the fact that in spite of it, men, or at least some of them, succeeded in obtaining a good foundation in medicine and then by personal work afterwards came to be excellent practitioners of medicine. ”

“ Notwithstanding all the laws enacted to raise the standard of medicine, and thus protect the public from quackery, there yet exists a disposition among many to cling to all that savors of the miraculous, or supernatural. To insure the future advancement of the healing art, physicians must instruct mankind in Physiology, Hygiene, and Medicine. When the people understand the nature of diseases, their causes, methods of prevention and cure, they will not be easily deceived, and practitioners will be obliged to qualify themselves better for their labors. ”

“ Might not, I say, seven years of the actual work, in the susceptible period of life, make a preacher of no mean power, without the grammar-school, without the Arts classes, without the Divinity Hall?
What, then, do we gain by taking such a roundabout approach to our professional work? The answer is twofold:
First, as regards the profession itself. Nearly every skilled occupation, in our time, involves principles and facts that have been investigated, and are taught, outside the profession; to the medical man are given courses of chemistry, physiology, and so on. ”