Maybe the biggest lesson from Leale’s story is that medicine was never just about technical skill. It was meant to include responsibility, sacrifice, judgment, and deep human connection. Those qualities used to define the profession.
Charles Augustus Leale, Abraham Lincoln, and the Physician We Are Slowly Losing Continue Reading
Given that life expectancy in this country has stagnated over the past 12-15 years, and it is universally acknowledged that chronic disease has risen, it’s past time that we step back and take a hard look at what we’ve done.
Detours and Missteps on the Road to Medical Advances Continue Reading
I began to recognize that from the 1960s through the end of the 20th century, there were a series of illnesses that I initially referred to as ‘fad’ diseases. I now refer to these conditions as ‘meme’ diseases.
George Washington’s terrible fate ought to have sounded a national alarm to ring through our long history. The lesson should be never to replace epistemic humility in medicine with institutionalized dogma. That lesson did not stick.
George Washington, Father of the Country, Killed by Doctors Continue Reading
I can recall my shock that George W. Bush gave a presser in which he pushed for lockdowns. I wrote the following article reprinted below. So far as I know, I was alone in raising protest against this insanity.
A few years ago, “Precision Medicine” was put forward as a way to significantly improve treatment. Now, it is as if it never happened. Instead of pursuing “Truth” and striving “Ever to Excel,” medicine seems to have the tagline, “Good Enough.”
For this system to ultimately take the place of the current peer-review system, universities would need to embrace it and figure out how to evaluate scholars’ productivity for the purposes of granting tenure and so forth.
There are many – too many – intellectual sources, contemporary as well as throughout the history of the world, from which I could draw to answer it in a very provisional manner, so I’ll have to be selective, but here goes.
What (and How) Should Our Students Be Taught Today? Continue Reading
Reform efforts have been met with frustration. The entire machinery is set up to resist the influence of a politically hostile takeover. For example, Moderna has been given the green light to further develop the technology for a flu shot.
War is likely to persist. Medicine, however, must remain steadfast, anchored in principles that transcend conflict, ideology, and time. It should not become a weapon but must remain a profession dedicated to the care of each individual, regardless of circumstance.
All rhetoric and seeming extremism aside, all these movements have ever wanted – from the 1790s to today – is for this product to be subject to normal market discipline of supply and demand, without any interventions designed to back the industry.
The Story of the Victorian-Era Anti-Mandate Movement Continue Reading
Contemporary medicine is not failing for lack of knowledge. It is failing under the weight of complexity. Nearly every aspect of patient care can now be measured. Yet despite these advances, a fundamental element has been eroded. This erosion is philosophical.
The Lost Art of Medicine: What Maimonides Knew That We Forgot Continue Reading
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