ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS:
Requirements: 1250-1500 words in length (approximately 5-6 pages). You may reference/cite the readings in whatever style you prefer.
Topic: Bernard and Pathology in Practice This assignment asks you to reflect on the important connection between the sciences of physiology and pathology. Only use the following readings (available from OWL):
1. R. Wilkinson, “The Doctors Whose Patients are Already Dead” (The Atlantic, July 14, 2015)
2. C.Régnier, “Claude Bernard (1813-1878) and experimental medicine” (Medicographia, 34: 4, 2013)
3. J. Prahlow and D. Vogel, “Pathology: Myths and Truths” (College of American Pathologists, 2013)
There are two (2) parts to this assignment:
Part 1: [This should take up approximately 2/3 of the assignment] How is Claude Bernard’s experimental approach to physiology relevant to the work of the modern pathologist? (I.e., the modern pathologist as described in Wilkinson’s article and in the article by Prahlow and Vogel) In your answer, describe Bernard’s approach to physiology and explain why it was so original. Be sure to include the following ideas: determinism, lesion, internal milieu, autopsy, cell pathology, and disease process.
Part 2: [This should take up approximately 1/3 of the assignment] Critically reflect on whether William Osler was right to refer to pathologists as “the doctor’s doctors”. (Discuss in relation to the Wilkinson and Prahlow and Vogel readings.) Who is the patient in this description of the pathologist? Comment on this point in general terms and in relation to the idea of the deceased person who is undergoing an autopsy as presented in the Wilkinson
