Doctor’s semantics
In 1973, Luc Boltanski published an article entitled “Les usages sociaux du corps”. Later on, in 1984, five years after i graduated as a medical doctor, another Boltanski’s paper called my attention (“The Social Classes and the body”). This is one of my favorites social science books. Since then, Luc’s innovative approaches have puzzled me.
It was the first time i put my medical profession in perspective. Particularly, it was a substantial opportunity to understand why doctors usually translate patients’ narratives. In other words, the author unfolds how patients’ profane language is transformed into medical sacred terminology. I think is fair to say our everyday ordinary language, for some reason is turned into their “own semantic”. Headache becomes cephalea … and so it goes indefinitely.
Should we ask ourselves, why doctors incorporate their own patients’ narrations into a “hermetic discourse”? Michel Foucault and Georg Simmel would have different approaches to the same issue. Let’s start with Simmel’s.
If in one hand, Luc Boltanski unveiled doctor’s rituals to translate patients’ “signs and symptoms” into specialized technical terms, on the other hand, Georg Simmel’s sociological contributions might illuminate us about the “sociology of secrets and the secret societies.” Simmel, a german sociologist and philosopher, explained the logic behind the secret society and how it is formed and sustained.
In that sense, taking into account patterns and functioning of medical terminology and sustainability of medical profession (represented by its “interna corporis”), we agree with Boltanski and Simmel’s analysis. For this reason, we applied the “secret society” concept to medicine in this post, with one slight difference: there is no secrecy whatsoever in doctors’ semantics. It is, for real, a “language of their own”.
One secret society characteristic is to keep “certain rules assimilated, agreed upon and used”, which contribute to a particular way of functioning. The “interna corporis” expression, commonly used by lawyers, can be translated as “matters that only interest to a certain group”, or in other terms, “what is to be discussed internally”.
You may argue with me: are you a doctor, or not? Yes, i am. However, it does not imply i can’t, “from a moment”, distance myself to analyze and discuss our medical practices, specially when doctor’s “language of deficit” diffusively expands into our contemporary culture, as Kenneth Gergen has published over the years.
As a medical school teacher in RIO, i noticed young medical students tend to assimilate the “secret society” rituals as the years pass by. Generally speaking, during the first years students sustain sensitive approaches, gradually detaching from “human suffering” when their medical education is coming to a closure.
Some medical teachers defend the premise that’s is only part of what they understand as “scientific neutrality”. I disagree.
Boaventura de Sousa-Santos, an outstanding portuguese scholar, strongly emphasizes “objectivity” (not “neutrality”) is the correct word to be used in this medical training’s scenario.
Semantics once again? Not in that case. I agree with Sousa-Santos: human science can not be neutral because is human.
Before we approach our post’ closure, let’s not forget Michel Foucault’s contributions to our view. In many of his books he has covered lots of subjects related to medical discourse. It would not be reasonable to choose only one aspect amongst Foucault’s extraordinary writings. Having said that, i would have to align myself with Foucault’s understanding about the “knowledge-power” contained in medical discourse. In my view, Foucault’s comprehension interweaves with Simmel’s “secret society” concept, as well as medical conversion of patients’ profane narratives into sacred medical semantics, as stated by Boltanski.
Boltanski’s and Simmel’s references help us anchor sociological understanding of our medical profession. Our current post is merely a glimpse or a simple fraction, we consider useful when reviewing what we’re socially constructing in therapeutic professions these days.
Thus, i think it is reasonable we take, a moment or two, of our lives to think about doctors’ semantics.
Annibal Coelho de Amorim, MD / Brasil, RIO, Feb, 04th, 2016
