Treating, curing, or caring? A reflection of the three different approaches

Engel in 1987 wrote that much of the data upon which physicians depend on their interpretation, judgements, and decisions are human data, what people say and do and how they look and behave [1]. He also stated that, for the scientific physician, to be interested and skillful in the human domain should be as natural as breathing [1]. Since human and scientific domains are intertwined, considering human data becomes part of clinical work. However, it might be interesting to reflect on how to consider human data, whether collecting or not collecting them, how much load to give to them and so on. This opens to a reflection on treating, curing, or caring. To contribute to such a reflection, I will try to briefly report, based on the consultation of the literature and online medical dictionaries, the definition/description of treating, curing, and caring, of course when they are applied to clinical settings. Taking care will not be considered since it pertains to the balance between benefit and harm, which is beyond the scope of the present paper.