Medicine, Fast and Slow (with Dr. Victoria Sweet)

The Doctor's Art

Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson

Medicine, Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Philosophy

5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Victoria Sweet is a prize-winning author, medical historian, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of two bestselling books: “God's Hotel,” which details her time as a doctor in the last almshouse in the United States, and “Slow Medicine,” a memoir that outlines her approach to medicine as both a craft and art. In this episode, Dr. Sweet discusses why she reframes the doctor-patient relationship from one of a mechanic repairing a machine, to one of a gardener tending to her plants. Through vivid stories of her remarkable experiences, she illustrates how combining insights of premodern medicine with advances of modern health care can lead to better healing.

In this episode, you will hear about:

How the writings of Carl Jung drew Dr. Sweet to medicine - 2:18
The story of how a resourceful nurse and a stubborn patient taught Dr. Sweet what it meant to be “a real doctor” - 9:36
The origin of the Slow Medicine movement and how it shapes Dr. Sweet’s approach to patient care - 16:19
The Philosophy of the Minimum and why examining side effects and placebo groups is critical to delivering the best patient care - 22:03
Dr. Sweet’s time at Laguna Honda Hospital, the “last almshouse in the United States”, and what she learned about healing from the slower pace of that hospital - 27:07
How studying medieval figures like Hildegard of Bingen influenced Dr. Sweet’s appreciation for premodern medicine and how she pairs it with modern medicine - 33:58
Dr. Sweet’s advice for clinicians facing the mounting challenges of the modern corporate medical landscape - 40:02

Dr. Sweet is the author of God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine and Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing.

Dr. Sweet discusses the influence of Carl Jung’s memoir Memories, Dreams, and Reflections

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Henry Bear.
0:03.3	And I'm Tyler Johnson.
0:04.8	And you're listening to the Doctors' Art, a podcast that explores meaning in medicine.
0:10.1	Throughout our medical training and career, we have pondered, what makes medicine meaningful?
0:15.2	Can a stronger understanding of this meaning create better doctors?
0:18.8	How can we build healthcare institutions that nurture the doctor-patient connection?
0:23.1	What can we learn about the human condition from accompanying our patients in times of suffering?
0:28.0	When seeking answers to these questions, we meet with deep thinkers working across healthcare,
0:33.1	from doctors and nurses to patients and healthcare executives, those who have collected a
0:37.5	career's worth of heart or wisdom.
0:40.2	Proving the moral heart that beats the core of medicine, we will hear stories that are
0:44.0	by turns heartbreaking, amusing, inspiring, challenging, and enlightening.
0:49.3	We welcome anyone curious about why doctors do what they do.
0:52.8	Join us as we think out loud about what illness and healing can teach us about some of
0:57.6	life's biggest questions.
0:59.8	Modern medicine has given us unprecedented advances in technology, with ever quicker
1:07.2	and more precise diagnostics and therapeutics, enabling us to fix diseases in ways that just
1:12.3	a generation ago would have been unthinkable.
1:15.0	But is this always the best kind of medicine?
1:17.6	Is there something missing here?
1:19.5	Our guest today, Dr. Victoria Sweet, argues that good medicine takes more than amazing
1:24.2	technology.
	...

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