摘要:Patients need clinical competence, appropriate diagnosis and therapies in overcomingtheir disease. Yet this is insufficient. The illness experience tends to frighten people andthe resulting emotional aspects could become relevant factors in coping with a sicknessand disability. Hippocrates was the first to urge physicians to look beyond the physicalfeatures of diseases and to consider the patient as a unique psychosomatic entity. Additionally,the scientist spurred physicians to make the patient an active participant incombating the disease. According to Hippocrates, “the Medical Art has three actors:the physician, the patients and the disease. The physician and the patient must be alliedagainst the disease in order to fight it”. In the “Post-Genomic Era”, an effective therapeuticapproach merits a patient-physician participation, based on scientific understandingsand human considerations. These recommendations are even more urgent for RareDiseases.
关键词:history of medicine; narration; rare diseases; communication