History of Medicine Through Art: Rudolf Virchow
Presentation made for IDH 3034 in Fall 2021
Portfolio Reflection: Rudolf Virchow
Of all the pieces of work that I have created for my Honors courses, I believe this is the one that I am the proudest of. This piece was made for Dr. Amilcar Castellano-Sanchez’s History of Medicine Through Art course. The instructions were to create a presentation, to be given orally, on a historical figure that contributed to the discipline of medicine. We were given the assignment at the beginning of the semester, and we could present it at any time throughout the course of the semester. I briefly read through the possible historical figures we could choose from, and I quickly found Virchow to be the most interesting. From the beginning of the semester, I chose Virchow and began doing my research.
It's worth noting that among his many medical contributions, Virchow is credited with being the father of pathology— being the first to describe the origin of diseases as coming from individual cells, not from the organs or tissues that these cells make up. I don’t know how I didn’t realize this at the time of choosing Virchow, but Dr. Castellano-Sanchez, our professor, is a pathologist. I immediately thought “how can I possibly give a good presentation on a pathologist to a pathologist?” So, I logically realized there was little room for error. I convinced myself that this presentation had to be perfect. Despite setting such high expectations for myself on this project, I never dreaded the time I put into it. Every hour I spent reading and preparing my presentation led to me being more immersed and excited about the project. I feel like this attitude that I adopted towards the project is what allowed me to feel so satisfied with my work and has allowed me to retain most of the information that I learned from working on it.
Regardless of my excitement, I still had a looming sense of anxiety as to what Dr. Castellano-Sanchez would think of it. I wasn’t even worried about the grade at this point, I just wanted to do a good job. Fortunately, my anxiety was quickly put to rest after presenting. Not only was Dr. Castellano-Sanchez impressed with the accuracy of my presentation, he even admitted to having learned a few things. Specifically, the idea of social medicine, which Virchow helped to establish. Social medicine is the idea that politics is nothing more than medicine on the large scale— manifested by the prevalence of diseases in areas with unfavorable conditions for life, like lack of access to clean drinking water, uncontaminated food and extreme poverty. To highlight the importance of social medicine, I used the real-world example of COVID-19 related deaths in different areas of Brazil. In a nutshell, the geographical and socioeconomic inequalities present among different regions of Brazil were the strongest determinants for the outcomes from COVID-19. The areas with the lowest proportion of people with risk factors (meaning the healthiest) were coincidentally the areas with the lowest socioeconomic indexes and the least ICU beds per measure of population, which in turn led to these areas having the highest number of deaths due to the virus. The remarkable outcome of “healthy” people being at higher risk of COVID associated deaths simply due to their socioeconomic status perfectly highlights the importance of social medicine and its focus on ensuring proper health measures for all citizens.
As a pre-med student aspiring to be a physician, I think the key idea that I took from this project and its research was that the prevention of diseases is of utmost importance, prophylactics is far better than palliative care. In order to ensure the well-being of the general population we must not only focus on treating diseases, but also emphasize the importance of preventing these diseases from originating in the first place. This is only one example of the work I did for this class, and even though the class only lasted a semester, I’m certain that what I’ve learned from it will stay with me for the rest of my life and help me become the best physician I can possibly be.
Portfolio Reflection: Rudolf Virchow
Of all the pieces of work that I have created for my Honors courses, I believe this is the one that I am the proudest of. This piece was made for Dr. Amilcar Castellano-Sanchez’s History of Medicine Through Art course. The instructions were to create a presentation, to be given orally, on a historical figure that contributed to the discipline of medicine. We were given the assignment at the beginning of the semester, and we could present it at any time throughout the course of the semester. I briefly read through the possible historical figures we could choose from, and I quickly found Virchow to be the most interesting. From the beginning of the semester, I chose Virchow and began doing my research.
It's worth noting that among his many medical contributions, Virchow is credited with being the father of pathology— being the first to describe the origin of diseases as coming from individual cells, not from the organs or tissues that these cells make up. I don’t know how I didn’t realize this at the time of choosing Virchow, but Dr. Castellano-Sanchez, our professor, is a pathologist. I immediately thought “how can I possibly give a good presentation on a pathologist to a pathologist?” So, I logically realized there was little room for error. I convinced myself that this presentation had to be perfect. Despite setting such high expectations for myself on this project, I never dreaded the time I put into it. Every hour I spent reading and preparing my presentation led to me being more immersed and excited about the project. I feel like this attitude that I adopted towards the project is what allowed me to feel so satisfied with my work and has allowed me to retain most of the information that I learned from working on it.
Regardless of my excitement, I still had a looming sense of anxiety as to what Dr. Castellano-Sanchez would think of it. I wasn’t even worried about the grade at this point, I just wanted to do a good job. Fortunately, my anxiety was quickly put to rest after presenting. Not only was Dr. Castellano-Sanchez impressed with the accuracy of my presentation, he even admitted to having learned a few things. Specifically, the idea of social medicine, which Virchow helped to establish. Social medicine is the idea that politics is nothing more than medicine on the large scale— manifested by the prevalence of diseases in areas with unfavorable conditions for life, like lack of access to clean drinking water, uncontaminated food and extreme poverty. To highlight the importance of social medicine, I used the real-world example of COVID-19 related deaths in different areas of Brazil. In a nutshell, the geographical and socioeconomic inequalities present among different regions of Brazil were the strongest determinants for the outcomes from COVID-19. The areas with the lowest proportion of people with risk factors (meaning the healthiest) were coincidentally the areas with the lowest socioeconomic indexes and the least ICU beds per measure of population, which in turn led to these areas having the highest number of deaths due to the virus. The remarkable outcome of “healthy” people being at higher risk of COVID associated deaths simply due to their socioeconomic status perfectly highlights the importance of social medicine and its focus on ensuring proper health measures for all citizens.
As a pre-med student aspiring to be a physician, I think the key idea that I took from this project and its research was that the prevention of diseases is of utmost importance, prophylactics is far better than palliative care. In order to ensure the well-being of the general population we must not only focus on treating diseases, but also emphasize the importance of preventing these diseases from originating in the first place. This is only one example of the work I did for this class, and even though the class only lasted a semester, I’m certain that what I’ve learned from it will stay with me for the rest of my life and help me become the best physician I can possibly be.
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