Escaping Babel: The surgical voice

摘要

After I talked at the last Medicine Unboxed event about the surgical voice, I started to reflect on how surgery differs from other forms of medicine and how this might shape communication. To me, the core of medicine is what takes place when two people-a clinician and a patient-encounter one another within a relationship of care. This relationship is mediated through voice, although not necessarily through words. In this context "voice" is a complex concept that can be read in both literal and metaphorical terms. From this perspective, voice-extended to include facial expression, gesture, touch, even clinical interventions-is medicine's primary medium of connection. Making sense of voice involves the ability to transmit and receive simultaneously, continually modulating the one in response to the other.