Halfway Technology in Medicine

Some thoughts on wrong directions in medicine from Chronosphere: "The first thing that anyone needs to understand about medicine is what its proper goal is. That's actually pretty simple: to cure disease and maintain good health. No further qualifications are necessary. Once that proposition is accepted, it then should become obvious that the end goal, and the ultimate ideal of medicine, is to keep people alive and in good health indefinitely. ... So, despite the fact that most people, when asked, will recoil in horror from the notion of personal, biological immortality, the fact is that that is exactly what they expect, exactly what they want, and exactly what they will effectively demand. Unfortunately, most of the medicine we practice today is not only not going to provide immortality any time soon ... Halfway technology represents the kinds of things that must be done after the fact, in efforts to compensate for the incapacitating effects of certain diseases whose course one is unable to do very much about. By its nature, it is at the same time highly sophisticated and profoundly primitive ... It is characteristic of this kind of technology that it costs an enormous amount of money and requires a continuing expansion of hospital facilities ... It is when physicians are bogged down by their incomplete technologies, by the innumerable things they are obliged to do in medicine, when they lack a clear understanding of disease mechanisms, that the deficiencies of the health-care system are most conspicuous ... The only thing that can move medicine away from this level of technology is new information, and the only imaginable source of this information is research. The real high technology of medicine comes as the result of a genuine understanding of disease mechanisms and when it becomes available, it is relatively inexpensive, relatively simple, and relatively easy to deliver."

Link: http://chronopause.com/index.php/2011/02/14/achieving-truly-universal-health-care/

Comment Submission

Post a comment; thoughtful, considered opinions are valued. New comments can be edited for a few minutes following submission. Comments incorporating ad hominem attacks, advertising, and other forms of inappropriate behavior are likely to be deleted.

Note that there is a comment feed for those who like to keep up with conversations.