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Med Humanities 2002;28:74-77 doi:10.1136/mh.28.2.74
  • Original article

Art, science, and the existential focus of clinical medicine

  1. A Warsop
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr A Warsop, Jubilee Street Practice, 368–74 Commercial Road, London E1 0LS, UK;
 awarsop{at}online.co.uk
  • Accepted 28 July 2002

Abstract

The continuing debate over the status of medicine as an art or a science remains far from resolved. The aim of this paper is to clarify what is meant by the art of medicine. In the following interpretation I contrast two current perspectives of the medical art. I argue that the art of medicine is best understood in terms of the Aristotelian notion of techne. It consists of listening skills directed to the lived experience of the patient in such a way that knowledge (principally scientific knowledge) can be applied in a therapeutic way. This constitutes what I call medicine’s existential focus. The art of medicine is prior to and independent of medical science which plays an important but subordinate role.

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