Abstract
A WHITE COAT. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR’S BLACK BAG. A STETHOSCOPE. A snake-entwined staff. The oath of Hippocrates. The clinical acumen of Osler and the compassionate service of Schweitzer. These are the symbols and personifications of our chosen profession. One symbol of medicine since antiquity has been the Aesculapian staff. A glance through this journal will uncover the staff in the American Medical Association’s emblem, depicting a snake coiled around the rough, knotty staff of the Greek physician Aesculapius. In this issue of MSJAMA, Nathan W. Williams explores the connection between snakes and the art of healing across cultures; Judith Anne Stanton introduces us to Aesculapius. Williams reveals that the serpent can represent the forces of both healing and destruction. Stanton demonstrates that society’s alternating praise and distrust of the medical profession have been present throughout time and suggests that such ambivalence will continue. Valerie A. Jones turns her attention to another Greek healer, Hippocrates, who bestowed on modern medicine a legacy of ethical thought embodied in his famous oath. This pledge has become part of a new ceremony that Jones describes in her discussion of a second inherited symbol of the profession—the physician’s white coat. Timothy Lahey, MD, argues that we must preserve the purity of the meaning behind such symbols as the white coat by always acting in the best interest of our patients. By exploring the symbols that form and influence the culture of medicine, we hope to come closer to the heart of what it means to be a physician.
Highlights
Peter Hazelton, JD, Alternate Delegate Heather Linebarger, At-Large Officer Sanjay Saxena, Speaker Eric Shaw, Vice Speaker Jeffrey Towson, Student Trustee Michael Bigelow, MD, PhD, Past Chairperson
MSJAMA is prepared by the MSJAMA editors and MSJAMA staff and is published monthly from September through May
Submitted work is subject to review and editing
Summary
Rounding (construction paper and colored tissue paper) by Daphne Cook, Case Western Reserve University. The snake’s unique abil- tween the surface and the subterranean worlds with an unity to shed its old skin represents a triumph of self-renewal canny undulating motion, the serpent assumed the role as over aging This metaphor is conveyed in a legend shared by messenger between this world and the underworld.[1,2] several cultures, which states that God intended to tell hu- As symbols of life and death, serpents and their associated mans to cast off their old skins as they aged and to become staffs represent both the aspirations and dangers of medical young again, but the message was instead delivered to the ser- practice.
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