The dying art of medicine

Remembering the legendary Dr. Raymond Alonso

- DR. EDSEL MAURICE T. SALVANA

Most lay people see doctors as clinicians. Almost everyone assumes that if you have "MD" after your name, you see patients and help them get better.

This makes for awkward moments during emergencies when a diagnostic radiologist, whose specialty is looking at imaging studies like CT scans, MRIs, and X-rays, or a pathologist, who looks at tissue under the microscope to make a diagnosis, is the only doctor around and they probably haven't handled patients since medical school. A similar situation may occur with a doctor who is in a specialty focusing on a body part, for instance, an ophthalmologist, and hasn't kept up with current medical knowledge for the rest of the body. What people really think when they hear the word "doctor" is an internist, pediatrician, or family practitioner who looks at the entire body and treats the most common illnesses seen in patients.