title: The physician as teacher. Epistemic function, cognitive function and the incommensurability of errors.
abstract: In many Hippocratic writings, the writers' attention is often focused on registering and discussing medical errors. Far from being sporadic and fortuitous, these discussions represent a privileged rhetorical resource in order to produce different effects. The aims of my paper will be: 1) to determine some of the most important contexts in which errors become the object of medical discourse; 2) to distinguish, per exempla, the typologies of errors made object of discourse; 3) to give an epistemological outline which may clarify which functions these discourses have and whether these functions respond coherently to a conscious plan of medical knowledge.
authors.affiliation: Department of Classical Philology of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lo Presti
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000266:history*; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000266:history*; D010819:Physician's Role / Q000266:history*; D013663:Teaching / Q000266:history*