Criticism of modern medicine
According to Paul Farmer, the main problem for modern medicine is lack of access in poor regions. There is an "outcome gap" between the rich and poor that is most noticeable with expensive-to-treat diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis. The majority of medical resources and therapies are concentrated in the rich, low-incidence regions such as the West. On the other hand, countries in the developing world have high rates of HIV but lack the resources to treat them.[13]
Medical errors and overmedication are also the focus of complaints and negative coverage. Practitioners of human factors engineering believe that there is much that medicine may usefully gain by emulating concepts in aviation safety, where it is recognized that it is dangerous to place too much responsibility on one "superhuman" individual and expect him or her not to make errors. Reporting systems and checking mechanisms are becoming more common in identifying sources of error and improving practice. Clinical versus statistical, algorithmic diagnostic methods were famously examined in psychiatric practice in a 1954 book by Paul E. Meehl, which found statistical methods superior.[14] A 2000 meta-analysis comparing these methods in both psychology and medicine found that statistical or "mechanical" diagnostic methods were, in general, although not always, superior.[14]
Disparities in quality of care given among local demographics are often an additional cause of controversy.[15] For example, elderly mentally ill patients received poorer care during hospitalization in a 2008 study.[16] Rural poor African-American men were used in an infamous study of syphilis that denied them basic medical care.
Honors and awards
Main article: Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine
The highest honor awarded in medicine is the Nobel Prize in Medicine, awarded since 1901 by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet.
History
Main article: Timeline of medicine and medical technology
Ancient world
Statuette of ancient Egyptian physician Imhotep, the first physician from antiquity known by name.
Prehistoric medicine incorporated plants (herbalism), animal parts and minerals. In many cases these materials were used ritually as magical substances by priests, shamans, or medicine men. Well-known spiritual systems include animism (the notion of inanimate objects having spirits), spiritualism (an appeal to gods or communion with ancestor spirits); shamanism (the vesting of an individual with mystic powers); and divination (magically obtaining the truth). The field of medical anthropology examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or impacted by issues of health, health care and related issues.
An ancient Greek patient gets medical treatment: this aryballos (circa 480–470 BCE, now in Paris's Louvre Museum) probably contained healing oil
The Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460 BCE – ca. 370 BCE), considered the father of medicine.[17][18]
Early records on medicine have been discovered from ancient Egyptian medicine, Babylonian medicine, Ayurvedic medicine (in the Indian subcontinent), classical Chinese medicine (predecessor to the modern traditional Chinese Medicine), and ancient Greek medicine and Roman medicine. The Egyptian Imhotep (3rd millennium BC) is the first physician in history known by name. Earliest records of dedicated hospitals come from Mihintale in Sri Lanka where evidence of dedicated medicinal treatment facilities for patients are found.[19][20] The Indian surgeon Sushruta described numerous surgical operations, including the earliest forms of plastic surgery.[21][dubious – discuss][22][23]
The Greek physician Hippocrates, the "father of medicine",[17][18] laid the foundation for a rational approach to medicine. Hippocrates introduced the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, which is still relevant and in use today, and was the first to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic, and use terms such as, "exacerbation, relapse, resolution, crisis, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence".[24][25]
The Greek physician Galen was also one of the greatest surgeons of the ancient world and performed many audacious operations, including brain and eye surgeries. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the onset of the Early Middle Ages, the Greek tradition of medicine went into decline in Western Europe, although it continued uninterrupted in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Most of our knowledge of ancient Hebrew medicine during the 1st millennium BC comes from the Torah, i.e. the Five Books of Moses, which contain various health related laws and rituals. The Hebrew contribution to the development of modern medicine started in the Byzantine Era, with the physician Asaph the Jew.[26]