Tag: language
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The language game of medicine
Gunjan Sharma Devon, United Kingdom Photo by Ludomił on Unsplash “The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein1 The Language Game Language is a fascinating concept when viewed through a philosophical lens. Imagine if we no longer had a word for jealousy. Would that…
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Latin and medicine
Noah DeLone Miami, Florida, United States Photography by Celeste RC Language is the cornerstone of our ability to communicate as humans and underlies the prose of our medical discourse. The words we select can be indicative of our background, training, and intentions. It should come as no surprise that a robust knowledge of one’s…
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An emigrant doctor’s linguistic journey on crutches
Zeynel A. KarciogluCharlottesville, Virginia, United States I am a linguistic cripple like many other immigrants. When I came to the United States as a foreign medical graduate I was rather young, but the neurocognitive linguistic skills of my Turkish mother tongue were already established in my cortex. The Turkish language, as inherited from my parents,…
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The language of medicine
Rebecca MacDonell-Yilmaz Providence, Rhode Island Language, both spoken and written, plays an enormous role in the education that we absorb from our predecessors and pass on to our successors. I realized this early on during my clinical rotations as a medical student, as I stared, lost, at the fishbone diagrams scratched out in residents’…
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To Sir, with gratitude
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece When I was twelve my late grandfather, seeing that I was disinclined to study English, made me an offer I could hardly ignore. “If you learn English,” he said, “then we shall go to America together,” knowing that this was a boyhood dream of mine. A few years later, at…