Dhruv Khullar speaks to the issue of how society approaching fighting against a disease or form of cancer versus how the patients themselves feel they should approach it. Khullar gets at the concept of military language which is used heavily in the medical field when people describe themselves as “fighters” or when Doctor’s describe their battle as a “war against cancer” for example. Early on, Khullar brings up multiple questions in his topic of discussion saying “Does this patient feel she lost the battle because she didn’t fight hard enough?” and “Might she have suffered less at the end if she hadn’t felt compelled to try one more drug, determined to soldier on?” Throughout his writing, he continuously references the words “Soldier” and “War” to reiterate his main idea that military language is widely used throughout the medical field. He later on points out how every aspect of a hospital can be directly relating to something involving war such as “the enemy (cancer), a commander (the physician), a combatant (the patient), allies (the healthcare team)” which is used to give his audience a clear mental image of how similar these concepts are between hospitals and the military directly relating to the reason we often times correlate them without even realizing.

Coming into this reading, I didn’t know exactly what to expect from hearing the title “Medicine’s Metaphors” even though the very minute I began analyzing it, I recognized a handful of these military terms that I had never directly associated before. At first, I didn’t exactly agree on Khullar’s take on the whole concept as he seemed to take it into a negative direction. I didn’t like that he called out the fact that these terms can lead to people making themselves feel bad if they “lose the battle” because in my mind personally, no matter how long it takes for a fatal illness to kill you, then you’ve still won as long as you’ve lived the best possible life. There is no such idea as losing when it comes to this matter which is something I wished he noted. However, despite his lack of consideration, I felt as though the entirety of this passage was intriguing. The background on perception with the “hot coffee”, “hand washing”, and “cities crisis” tests enveloped this idea that metaphors truly can change perception even more than a politician (noted later). I thought this was a good way to get back to his main point so people could understand how a Physician telling a patient “this is going to be a battle” could have such an extreme impact on their perception. The point that his home was when he quoted “They deserve to be the keepers of the lens through which they view their illnesses.” This was something I pointed out at the beginning which is that in the end, it’s up for the patient to decide their most effective coping mechanisms, not the one’s around them.

 

Geary

“But whenever we give a thing a name that belongs to something else, we give it a whole network of analogies too”

This quote gives a good insight to why metaphors stand out and are more valuable then we think.

 

Erard

“Designers look for a common conceptual domains in which analogical mappings are easy to find”

This gives a background on how people such as Erard look to relate their metaphors to the public simply but effectively.

 

Khullar

“Ultimately, any metaphor – military or otherwise – is not inherently good or bad. Rather, the utility of each depends on a patient’s culture, values, experiences, and preferences.”

This line gives a nice summary to how metaphors have no true intent, but how the public perceives based on their own prior knowledge and experiences is what gives them all the meaning and power they possess today.