Hello everybody! Does somebody know of a word that describes the medical profession from the standpoint of its community service? To expand further, the primary aim of this profession is service to the community as against most other careers that are aimed at profit. Do we have a word or phrase that zeroes in on this primary aspect of medicine and that will be an apt counterpoint to 'commercial enterprise' or 'free market enterprise'?
It's not a term I would use myself, but I have heard "the caring professions".
Bingley
Thank u Bingley. But it needs to be much stronger than that. I need a zinger of a word/phrase for an article that is much overdue now, on the demerits of commercial enterprises such as telemedicine. One word/phrase that will drive the point home.
M
I have never heard such a word. And if there were one, in thirty years of reading as many
medical journals as I could manage, I think I would have seen and remembered it.
Is this a cross between English and Dutch?
"Altruistic"?
As a physician at work since 6:00 AM I'd like to add "sleepy."
Thanks a bunch to everyone who tried. I still, however, have no word and no clue. I think not-for-profit somewhat sums it up, but can be so easily confused with non profit, that I am loathe to use it. And altruistic, however close, is somewhat more akin to charity set ups and medicine is most definitely not that! Shall still keep looking though and if I find something will post it here.
M
Actually I think "professional" fits. Or at least it used to, in its older definition. Per Mr. Justice Brandeis:
The characteristics of a profession are that it seeks to
--preserve a body of knowledge
--expand the body of knowledge
--teach the body of knowledge
--set standards of practice and enforce them
and
--value performance over reward
These aspects have been largely cheapened and diluted recently, I fear, now that everybody's a professional. But that's what it was supposed to mean.
al·tru·ism n. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
Zoology. Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the individual but contributes to the survival of the species.
[French
altruisme, probably from Italian
altrui, someone else, from Latin
alter, other. See al-1 in Indo-European Roots.]
altru·ist n.
altru·istic adj.
altru·isti·cal·ly adv.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=altruism altruism Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness; opposed to
egoism or
selfishness.
Origin: F. Altruisme (a word of Comte's), It. Altrui of or to others, fr. L. Alter another.
"Is this a cross between English and Dutch?"
Ik think so.
Pro bono? It would apply probably just as much (if not more) to doctors doing community service. I may even live long enough to see that happen outside of movies.
- Pfranz
eleemosynary?
1. Of or pertaining to alms or almsgiving; charitable. eleemosynary house, corporation, one established for the distribution of alms, etc.
c1630 RISDON Surv. Devon §293 (1810) 302 These her eleemosinary acts..are almost vanished. 1695 KENNETT Par. Antiq. ix. 659 The Elemosinary House or Hospital for the maintenance of two Capellanes. 1702 in Lond. Gaz. No. 3812/1 Divers Persons to whom Eleemosinary Protections were granted. 1827 HALLAM Const. Hist. (1876) I. ii. 80 The blind eleemosynary spirit inculcated by the Romish church is notoriously the cause..of beggary. 1865 H. STAUNTON Grt. Schools Eng., Dulwich 502 Three [portions] are assigned to the Educational and one to the Eleemosynary branch.
In reply to:
And altruistic, however close, is somewhat more akin to charity set ups and medicine is most definitely not that!
I disagree that altruism pertains to charity. One can give to charity and be quite egotistical about it. Altruism (as it pertains to medicine) is a matter of putting the patient's needs ahead of your own. Altruism is not a matter of declining compensation for work (not exactly the same as profit, by the way). A physician who agrees to waive his fee but makes the patient wait three hours while he finishes a round of golf before before performing any medical service is not being especially altruistic. A physician who spends 6 weeks a year performing surgery (with no financial compensation) in El Salvador on pediatric patients with cleft palates is doing something both charitable and altruistic. The orgnaization Doctors Without Borders is devoted to doing work that is both charitable and altruistic. A hospital that continues to run a department that is not especially profitable, such as pediatrics, is doing so because to simply refuse to treat children would be unethical in light the altruistic expectations of the profession. A hospital uses the monies of more profitable departments such as surgery or radiation oncology to help support less profitable (or even money-losing) departments.
In contrast, a strictly for-profit business such as, say, the Coca-Cola Company, would be perfectly willing to completely drop a line of product that wasn't sufficiently profitable and invest their capital those products with the highest rate of return. This is because their primary aim is make a profit, and the product itself has no value beyond its ability to generate profit.
I seem to have offended, Alex. Do accept my apologies and let me rush to assure you that there was certainly no derogatory intent. I'd still struggle with the word altruistic though; somehow signifies a greater purpose or calling and i'd still like to look at it as a job. More on that however another time; i do digress... Am completely in agreement with the rest...and dont u see, that is exactly what i am searching for. The word that separates the coca cola companies and us? somehow the entire essay seems somewhat bereft without the word. The word that implies professionalism without the intent of making a profit. A counterpoint to capitalistic enterprise, maybe. But what is it???? I still can only come up with not-for-profit.
I like!!!
Pro bono publico (Latin): for the public good
Thanks Pfranz; the previous was meant for you!
I'm glad it satisfies you, maahey, but I can't quite accept it. You'll find members of all professions (yes, even lawyers!) who do pro bono work. But I can't see characterizing an entire profession as pro bono. Alex's examples of such work are good. But then you have plastic surgeons in Rio de Janeiro who own entire islands bought with the huge fees paid them by fading socialites.
eleemosynary?
Nice word, but not convinced that it applies to the medical profession.
Iatric? It doesn't seem to exist in English except as part of "iatrogenic". But the definition of that word and its origin suggests to me that iatric, all by itself, ought to mean "of or pertaining to physicians".
from OED2:
iatric - rare.
Belonging or relating to a physician or to medicine; medical; medicinal.
1865 Englishm. Mag. Feb. 158 The iatric powers with which he [Ęsculapius] is credited.
Part of the problem is that you want your word/phrase to be a zinger. I'm afraid that's incompatible with the concept of the altruistic-probono-professional, one of whose attributes is a touch of self-effacement. (Otherwise I'm not doing this for the general welfare but rather so that You [whoever and however-many You may be] will think I'm pretty hot stuff. And so noble, too.) That makes "zingerhood" a bit oxymoronic. Pizzazz just isn't part of the description.
Pizzazz just isn't part of the description.
That would be true if maahey is a doctor. If maahey is a PR person hired by doctors I don't see a problem.
Sometimes ya gots ta hire someone to blow your horn.
Either way it's not a problem. It just makes it harder to come up with the zinger of a word.
Well, I'm not offended ... just exasperated because I think altruistic is the correct word and I feel like I am talking to a brick wall. But if I keep going on about I'll just be flogging a dead horse. And when the dead horse falls off the brick wall we won't be able to put the metaphors back together again.
healarian : ( he ah LAIR ee un ) one who doctors primarily to heal rather than to make money.
Rationalizers being every doctor, every doctor is a healarian.
heal + arian (after humanitarian).
[ s/mw 2002.]
Dunno, Alex, I don't think altruism quite gets the point of what I think Maahey is wanting across. Altruism is one of those "dirty" words, kind of reverse selfishness. The value of altruism as a term, for me, was ruined the day that E.O. Wilson invented the quasi soft (read: softer than usual) pseudoscience of sociobiology and his eager acolytes pounced on apparent altruism in the animal world as being a bold statement in favour of nature over nurture. Phylogeny recapitulating ontogeny ad infinitum and all that jazz ...
I have this vision of a bunch of physicians, wearing green scrubs, masks and surgical gloves over the top of leather jackets, dirty jeans and winklepickers, stalking ill people through the alleys and byways of the city, leaping on them unawares after running a comb through their hair and emptying the contents of their V8 lowrider crash cart into the victims' unwilling veins ... "Wassa matter, punk. Doncha wanna get better?"
Dunno, is it me?
- Pfranz
healarian : ( he ah LAIR ee un ) one who doctors primarily to heal rather than to make money.
Good, but incomplete. Doctors work to prevent, as much as to heal - by the time healing is needed, often it's too late.
Edit: Pf - you mean first the patient has to want to be healed? Sounds too much like pfsychiatrists changing a lightbulb...
eleemosynary?
Nice word, but not convinced that it applies to the medical profession.
But what you had asked for was not a word that applies to the medical profession in general, but more restrictive than that.
You noticed that I put a question mark out there. That was because I was not myself convinced, but was merely throwing it out for discussion.
TEd
OK, doctors and witch doctors like long words that serve to flim-flam the paying customers, so how about...
vicaponicboxdocs (VIS-uh-po-NIKS-BOX-DOXS) doctors who have forgone lucrative positions in high society practice because of their altruistic desire to rid the poor neighborhoods around them of unnecessary pain and suffering.
I coulda been somebody, I coulda been a contender, were it not for this godforsaken curse of vicaponicism.
(vicinage) neighborhood + (aponic) free of pain + (doc-in-a-box) self-explanatory.
[s/mw 2002]
Actually it's in a lot of words:
geriatric, psychiatric, pediatric.
I do a lot of crossword puzzles, and I have noticed over the years that relatively rare words seem to pop up in cycles. Five years ago you would never have seen iatro or iatric in a crossword puzzle, not even the dreaded Sunday NY Times. Today I run across it at least once a week. I have to assume that there's a loose fellowship of builders who watch each others work to learn and borrow.
In reply to:
I have this vision of a bunch of physicians, wearing green scrubs, masks and surgical gloves over the top of leather jackets, dirty jeans and winklepickers, stalking ill people through the alleys and byways of the city, leaping on them unawares after running a comb through their hair and emptying the contents of their V8 lowrider crash cart into the victims' unwilling veins ... "Wassa matter, punk. Doncha wanna get better?"
Actually that describes my entire medical education. But what is a winklepicker? Sounds ghastly.
>I have to assume that there's a loose fellowship of builders..
should you chance to run into them one day, impress the hell out of them by calling them cruciverbalists.