Summer Conference
- OVERVIEW
- MODULE I
- MODULE II
- MODULE III
- MODULE IV
- MODULE V
- MODULE VI
- MODULE VII
- MODULE VIII
- ACCREDITATION
THE ROOTS OF MODERN MEDICINE
From 2002 to 2009, Augustine College has presented a week-long conference on the topic of medicine seen against the backdrop of the ‘big picture of Western history’.
With what principles and moral commitments did Western medicine begin, as it emerged from its Greek roots?
What shape did medicine take in the traditional cultures of Jews, Christians, and Muslims – what ends did it traditionally serve? And how was that understanding of medicine protected by the flowering of a profoundly Christian civilization?
As medicine has advanced, over the centuries, vastly increasing its technical powers, what also has it lost? Have the idea and the ends of medicine changed?
How well equipped is medicine, in its 21st-century form, to serve the end it once accepted: caring for the full human being who is ill?
June 6–12, 2010 we will be returning to the culture of ancient Greece with a fresh presentation of Module I in this series.
2010 Conference schedule
FORMAT OF THE CONFERENCE
Each summer (usually the first week of June), doctors, medical students, and other interested people arrive at Augustine College to participate in organized lectures and group discussion on themes linked with the specific era of history at issue that year.
The week begins with prayer and worship Sunday evening.
Then for five days (Monday to Friday) we begin each day with worship and a Biblical reflection conducted by the Chaplain of Augustine College, followed by one lecture/discussion session in the morning and another in the evening (afternoons are free).
Each session next summer will deal with an aspect of ancient Greek culture providing the context for the Greek understanding of medicine, topics such as:
the theory and practice of medicine before and after Hippocrates
ethics in medical practice
the Greek understanding of health, the body, suffering, and life
leading ideas of this period, as communicated in philosophy, politics, theology, literature, music, and art.
The lectures are delivered by professors and professionals in the various disciplines under discussion.
The Conference winds up with a country get-together on Saturday.
COST
$800 per person; $400 for spouses attending the lectures.
Do not let cost be an impediment: partial sponsorship may be available.
Listing of Ottawa churches and accommodations
ACCREDITATION
Augustine College applies for CME accreditation each year. Unfortunately US accreditation for 2010 may not be available because of new administration procedures. This program has been reviewed by The College of Family Physicians of Canada and is awaiting final accreditation by the College's Ontario Chapter.
APPLICATION
We are accepting applications for Module I being held June 2010. Applications forms can be submitted online or by fax/mail.
ORIGIN OF THE CONFERENCE
Due to the involvement of Dr. John Patrick in lecturing for the CMDA and the CMDS, we have geared the conferences towards the doctors and dentists, belonging to these organizations, who have commented on a need to supplement their education in the liberal arts.
Although the conferences have been specifically designed for members of the CMDA and CMDS we welcome other medical professionals, residents, and students. While a specialization in medicine provides a natural point of entry to the topics of the lectures, the content is not developed by physicians and is of broader general interest.
Augustine College can offer this kind of conference because it came into being precisely to teach the ‘big picture of Western history’ so often missed in higher education today. Its curriculum is therefore tailored to just this mode of exploration.
Join The Roots of Modern Medicine Forum
Module I | The Roots of Modern Medicine in the Greco-Roman Period
Offered in 2002
A series of lectures investigating some of the most enduring contributions to the development of Western culture made by ancient thinkers – Greeks, Jews, and Christians. Specific topics covered are Hippocratic medicine, the idea of illness, power and politics, the culture of death, wholeness (of body and spirit) and salvation, and the ancient view of suffering and hereditary guilt. An exploration of the Greek cultural context, considering the implications for a Christian understanding of the relationship between physical and spiritual healing.
Module II | The Roots of Modern Medicine in the Middle Ages
Offered in 2003
A series of lectures examining the influence of Galen on Islamic and Western medicine and the emergence of evidence-based medicine (examining the issue of which medicine and whose evidence); the nature of medicine and the cure of souls (seen as analogous to physical treatments) in The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius; the thought of Athanasius, an important Church Father, and his influence on the ‘public square’; the medieval emphasis on sin as the root cause of a wilfully created mental illness and the restoration of mental health through penance and purification; and art made for a medieval hospital as a way of expressing God's presence in everyday life, even in the suffering of the ill.
Module III | The Roots of Modern Medicine in the Renaissance
Offered in 2004
A series of lectures examining the fundamental change in our understanding of the universe and ourselves that was the result of the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton – four theists who gave us the beginnings of the reductionism and tacit atheism that dominates the modern world; the historical, philosophical, and religious context to which René Descartes responded with ideas still relevant to medicine today; suffering as medicine in Renaissance literature (Thomas More’s “A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation” and Shakespeare’s Tempest ); the modernity of Renaissance politics.
Module IV | The Roots of Modern Medicine from the Renaissance to the 18th Century
Offered in 2005
A series of lectures examining how Christian men who pursued science as a religious quest managed to create a conceptual framework for science that did not easily lend itself to the expression of religious ideas; William Harvey and the mechanical paradigm of disease and the influence on medicine of measurability; the emergence of clinical research with “outcome” measurements under Thomas Sydenham, the father of modern clinical medicine, who advanced beyond individual patient histories to reveal how infectious diseases spread; the understanding of the restoration of mental health in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and the questions probed by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels (what is a human being? are we proud insects or lords of creation?); Bishop Butler on medicine and the nature of charity; the delineation of the Christian ethical ideal for human life by William Law, an instance of the preservation of traditional Christian ethics; and syncretism in early modern culture, investigating a parallel between the of the Renaissance ‘return of the gods’ in a socio-religious setting strikingly similar to our own post-Christian and postmodern world; and Christianity in the music of Bach.
Module V | The Strange History of the Word Fact
Offered in 2006
A series of lectures examining the new ideas of the modern scientific era: Ockham's idea of limiting knowledge to what could be perceived by the senses and Francis Bacon’s injunction to simply collect facts (with the emergence of a privatised, subjective knowledge of God); the rise in stature of the knowledge obtained by the natural sciences, a new candidate for the sole legitimate knowledge; the patient seen as a disordered machine and the reductionist practice of medicine that accompanies it.
Module VI | Darwin: His Influence on the Modern World and the Ethos of Medicine
Offered in 2007
A series of lectures examining the development and the consequences of evolutionary scientific thinking and its influence on medical practice and many current decisions about health policy; the defining ideas of Marxist thought; Nietzsche’s de facto revival of a classical paradigm of ‘life’ and ‘health’ against Darwinian thought and the failures of modern ethics (Kantian and Utilitarian); a survey of the history of landscape painting, a genre of art triumphant in Darwin’s time.
Module VII | Technology and Life
Offered in 2008
A series of lectures examining the imperative of technology and depersonalization; the changing understanding of nature and science that has followed quantum physics; utilitarianism and medicine; orthodoxy and medicine; reality and mystery in the suffering patient; ministering to the diseased in Dostoyevsky and Chesterton; and the antecedent decay to which modern art was a response.
Module VIII | Today’s World: Science, Medicine & Culture in an Age without Moral Consensus
Offered in 2009
In the eighth and final series of lectures in our Roots of Modern Medicine program we examine our present age, an age (as predicted by Alasdair MacIntyre some forty years ago) without moral agreement. As a new breed of “barbarian” attacks our rights of conscience we yet lack the “new St. Benedict” that MacIntyre said we would need, were we again to build civilization amidst decadence. As rights of conscience are under attack in Australia, the UK, the US, and Canada, this year’s conference will focus upon why this has happened and the alarming prospects of a new unravelling of medical ethics under postmodern thought.
Conference schedule
Accreditation 2009
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) and Augustine College. CMDA is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The Christian Medical Association designates this educational activity for a maximum of 20.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s). Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the standards of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) Program Approval for Continuing Education (PACE) through the joint program provider approval of Christian Dental Association and Augustine College.
The Christian Dental Association is an Approved PACE Program Provider FAGD/MAGD Credit. Approval does not imply acceptance by a state or provincial board of dentistry or AGD endorsement. 1/01/07 to 12/31/10.
Accreditation 2008
The Christian Dental Association is designated as an Approved PACE Program Provider by the Academy of General Dentistry. The formal continuing education programs of this program provider are accepted by AGD for fellowship, mastership, and membership maintenance credit. Approval does not imply acceptance by a state or provincial board of dentistry. The current term of approval extends from 1/01/07 to 12/31/10.
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the standards of the Academy of General Dentistry Program Approval for Continuing Education (PACE) through the joint program provider approval of CDA and (non-approved program provider). The Christian Dental Association is approved for Awarding FAGD/MAGD credit.
Accreditation 2007
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), and the Augustine College. CMDA is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The Christian Medical Association designates this educational activity for a maximum of 22.5 hours in category 1 credit toward the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.