THE APPROACH TO PATIENTS

Bioethics
• Definitions of basic concepts: ethics, medical ethics, bioethics.
• The birth of bioethics: causes and consequences.
• Non-reductionist conceptions of medicine, disease/illness, care.
• Different kinds of ethics support services.

Brain, Mind and Behaviour
The human mind and its complexity:
• Neuropsychology of cognitive functions: The brain; Differences between left and right hemisphere in higher cognitive abilities.
• Learning and Memory: Types of learning; Classical conditioning in the brain; short- and long-term memory in the brain.
• Sensation and perception: Perceptual principles underlying our subjective representation of the world.
• Emotion: Expression and recognition of emotion; theories of emotion; biological correlates of emotion; psychological response to stress.
• Sleep and waking: Circadian rhythms; Stages of wakefulness and sleep; sleep throughout the life span; the function of sleep and dreams; consequences of sleep deprivation in the immune system.
The subjective world of the patient:
• Psychological practice in inpatient medical setting: verbal and non-verbal communication; health and illness identity
• The ancient body-mind problem in the approach to patients: materialistic vs. dualist approach
• Placebo and nocebo effect in the perception of health
• Psychological Issues in the Inpatient Setting: Adjustment to Medical Illness, Anxiety Depression Delirium and Acute Cognitive Changes; Substance Use and Abuse
• Special Issues in the Hospital Setting: Decisional Capacity; Nonadherence; Pain; End-of-Life Issues


History of Medicine
• “Possessed patients”. The concept of disease as a demoniac possession during prehistory and ancient times.
• “Imbalanced patients”. The concept of disease as an imbalance in the humoral composition of the body from classic times to the Renaissance.
• “Lesioned patients”. The anatomo-clinical concept of disease in modern medicine. The dawn of pathology. The introduction of stethoscope.
• “Dissected patients”. The dissection of living patients through medical imaging techniques in contemporary medicine.
• “Integrative medicine”. The new approach to care that puts the patient at the centre and addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that affect a person’s health.

Interview and data collection
• Clinical methodology: logic of clinical diagnosis; medical processes, decisions and strategies; active and inactive problems.
• Methodological approach to diseases.
• Anamnesis: familiar, physiological, remote pathological, present pathological, pharmacological and working activities.
• Approach to difficult patient and in complex situations