Why Do Physicians Join Terrorist Groups?

I asked this question earlier. Shrinkwrapped offers up this theory:

Several trends intersect to produce Doctors of Death.  The intellectual underpinnings go back to the Nazis, whose ideology forms part of the ideology of the Islamists, adapted to their interpretation of Islam.  For certain types of Doctors who have an overabundance of intellect and an insufficiency of humanity, Physician training can be easily corrupted by ideology.

Physicians during their training must reconcile several seemingly contradictory impulses.  In order to cure illnesses it is almost always necessary to first inflict greater pain.  Early on, we learn that pain is a signal, it points to the source of the problem.  Patients who enter an emergency room in terrible distress ideally should not be treated with pain killers until the Physician has a very good idea what the underlying problem is; the alternative, treating the pain alone without an etiology, risks masking the illness and leading to disaster.  While pain medication should never be needlessly withheld, it is often necessary for the Doctor to allow for such pain in the service of the patient's greater well being.  Worse, many times manipulations and tests must be done that actually make the pain a great deal worse before a diagnosis can be found and definitive treatment established.  The only way for most Physicians to overcome their natural empathy is to objectify the patient in order to maintain an appropriate and helpful distance.  Only by turning the patient into an object, for example, can the surgeon allow himself to cut into a human being, causing immediate terrible damage and pain, with the ultimate aim of curing or ameliorating.  As our technology improves, the need for pain to direct treatment decreases, but pain will always be a part of Medical practice and, of necessity, so will objectification.

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