Metaphor is a key element in persuading and influencing the attitudes and opinions of others in regards to a specific subject. Metaphor, often used as a method of comparison between two objects or actions, has been utilized in numerous works of literature and by various authors. However, one area that has been heavily influenced by the use of metaphor is the field of medicine. Metaphor has a substantial effect in the area of healthcare as a whole, from patients to physicians. Diseases, treatments, and other concepts and challenges are often addressed through the use of metaphors. Furthermore, the heavy use of such figurative language may also have a negative impact on patients and doctors as a whole. Specifically, commonly used metaphors relating closely to war and death prove detrimental to the mindsets of both physicians and their patients. Two examples of such are healthcare’s current fight against COVID-19 being a warzone and cancer being considered as death.

Cancer has often been the center of various medical metaphors. Cancer, being a destructive and devastating disease, has a significant physical, mental, and emotional impact on many families and physicians. Due to its harmful qualities, it is often easy to group it into many metaphors. Susan Sontag details the emotional implications and figurative language often used regarding a disease such as cancer in her book, Illness as a Metaphor. She gives a clear example, going as far as to say that “as today, in the popular imagination, cancer equals death” (Sontag, 1978). As Sontag explains, cancer has earned a reputation for being a “de-moralizing” disease that brings sorrow, pain, and suffering, creating a sense of invasion as abnormal cells multiply and damage internal functions (Sontag, 1978). It is common for those with cancer to ultimately have a more negative outcome, often with the disease leading to death. This creates a sense of fear, sorrow, and sadness for the families of patients suffering from the illness. The emotional impact of dealing with a disease such as cancer shows how concepts as sorrowful as death could be used to represent the negative atmosphere that the very thought of cancer creates. In addition, the metaphor of cancer equaling death has a large effect on the mindsets of people, including patients fighting the disease. This type of metaphor causes patients and their families to have a more pessimistic outlook, viewing their fight against the illness as futile or causing them to be in a complete state of helplessness. Thus, considering the negative atmosphere of distress that cancer creates, using metaphor to compare cancer to death may seem fair but ultimately contributes to the pessimistic outlook that the disease gives.

Metaphors relating to war and the military have been heavily utilized in the world of medicine. They have been used to represent the perspectives of doctors, nurses, PAs, patients, and all others involved in healthcare in any way, shape, or form. A clear example of this very use is found in the current-day COVID-19 pandemic. Without the present situation of containing the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, healthcare professionals have worked tirelessly to help treat COVID-19 patients. With the pressures of the current scenario affecting the lives of countless people, it has set the stage for metaphors to be created regarding the pandemic. Metaphors are being used to throw labels onto healthcare workers, essentially considering them to be soldiers on a battlefield at war with an enemy known as COVID-19. Doctors and nurses are being called “frontline workers”, implying that they are fighters seeking to win a physical battle against an opposing force. An article written by Adina Wise helps to detail the negative implications of this metaphor, and the damaging mindset it creates for healthcare workers fighting to contain the spread of the illness. Wise quotes, “Furthermore, using militaristic diction to describe doctors’ sense of duty conflates and confuses the reality of our responsibilities. Until a few months ago, those involved in the practice of modern medicine could be reasonably confident that, regardless of the patient’s ailment, the provider was not putting their own life at risk in the process of proffering treatment (although of course, with regard to infectious, communicable diseases, some chance of contagion always exists)” (Wise, 2020). She explains that the very use of metaphor to compare the work of physicians to that of the military is to confuse the very duty that healthcare workers carry. Doctors and nurses are not simply soldiers that are deployed in order to fight off disease and ultimately come home with accolades. Rather, they have continued to risk their lives for the treatment and betterment of their patients. Ultimately, as the difficult challenge of treating those suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic affects physicians across the world, the use of war metaphors to describe the roles of healthcare workers confuses their very perspectives towards the sacrifices they make for the public health.

To sum up, metaphor is an element that is heavily used in the area of healthcare. From the comparison of cancer to death to the use of war metaphors to describe physicians’ efforts to contain the current pandemic, metaphor plays a large role in shaping the mindsets of both healthcare workers and their patients. Metaphor truly serves as an impactful tool for influencing people’s perspective regarding ways to visualize disease, treatment, or even healthcare as a whole, ultimately for better or for worse.

Works Cited

1. Wise, Adina. “Military Metaphors Distort the Reality of COVID-19.” Scientific American Blog Network, Scientific American, 17 Apr. 2020, blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/military-metaphors-distort-the-reality-of-covid-19/. 
2. Sontag, Susan. Illness as a Metaphor. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988.