To people outside the health field, the term "denies" carries connotations
of being accused of something.  The "alleged perpetrator" of a crime
"denies" being guilty.  I think that's why it rouses such feelings of
uncomfortableness.  "Mother is accused of XYZ, and denies it."  "Compliance"
is the other one that rubs me the wrong way.  I'm sure my medical charts
have NON-COMPLIANT stamped on them in big red letters.

There is an approach to knowledge called the "Terrains of Ignorance" which
is used by a number of medical schools in the US to teach/train doctors.  I
have a transcript of a speech that outlines what this is all about.  The
speech was given at the 1995 American Academy of Family Physicians, by Dr.
Marlys H. Whitte (MD), University of Arizona
School of Medicine.  It was titled "Medical Ignorance, Failure, and Chaos:
Shifting Paradigms for the 21st Century"

The basics are:

What are the terrains, what are the landscapes of ignorance? A
conceptual map of the lands of the unknown:

1.   The known unknowns -- the things we know we don't know, and we research
them, we admit them as questions
2.   The unknown unknowns -- the things we don't know we don't know, or the
things we didn't know until recently we didn't know (the discoveries of
tomorrow).
3.   The things we think we know, but don't -- we can look at old textbooks
and see all the things we thought we knew, but didn't.

The Dean of Harvard Medical School tells incoming students that by the time
they graduate, 50% of what they have learned in medical school will be
proven, in 10-20 years, to be false.  The problem is, we don't know which
half.

4.   The unknown knowns -- the things we don't know that we know, the tacit
knowledge, the taken-for-granteds.
5.   The taboos, the dangerous, polluting, or forbidden knowledge -- that
lead us not to ask the questions that are important.
6.   Denial -- all the things too painful to know, so we simply don't know
them, because we don't want to know them.

It's a great speech.

Kathy Dettwyler
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html