Clerk

As soon as I find the edge of clinician is approaching to that of clergyman, I could not help laughing at the dark humor.

My reaction is simple, and my focus is purely literal. You know, the term clerk actually comes from clergy, because in medieval times, clergymen were one of the few people who could read, and, therefore, were often asked to do bookkeeping and other paper work. As the time evolves, people who do this job are called clerk.

And then it comes the term clerkship in medical eduction. The term is, once again, simple in origin. Before system-based and problem-based teaching methods are widely adopted by medical schools, medical students were largely taught by hands-on training. They were assistants to senior physicians and, as you would expected, the duty of students were largely clerical - they take history from patients for their supervisors (who were, I remind you, practising physicians and not laboratory scientists), document the findings of physical examination, and write up the treatment plan in the record.

With this historical background, I find our time more medieval than ever. For the considerations of risk management and so on, medical students are now forbidden to do clerical jobs mentioned above. Now, clerical tasks are clinical tasks - and, as far as I can see, we are moving to the era that clinical task is becoming clergy's task.

No wonder people believe everything would move back to the starting point at the end of the Big Bang.