Editorial: The relative roles of intellectual discourse and psychomotor performance in clinical medicine

I have always been interested in the apparent dichotomy between the two arms of medical training and practice: the exploration of disease and illness through intellectual discourse versus the practical use of the clinician’s psychomotor skills and techniques to physically interact with the patient. Perhaps there is no real surprise as medicine’s two branches – the less invasive medical methods and the more invasive surgical methods – have been present since before the existence of written language.2 This duality persists in the designation of the primary medical degree in most countries as a combination of a Bachelor of Medicine with a Bachelor of Surgery.