PROFESSION, VOCATION, MISSION OR WORK. THE ANCIENT PHYSICIAN AND THE CONTEMPORARY PHYSICIAN-PARALLEL LIVES

Abstract

In troubled times we return to the origins. Who are we, the physicians? Where did we start and where did we get from? We will approach the method of comparison used by Plutarch in Parallel Lives. Doctors (iatros) have already been active in ancient Greece and Europe, but there is still a profession today and the differences, at first sight, are significant. But the image is much more complex and nuanced. Drawing a parallel portrait between the ancient physician (Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Judaism and Early Christianity), respectively the professional doctor in our globalized, contemporary world of technology, we can observe that no much has changed and the transformations have not been so accentuated. Almost always only the context has changed.