ENDURING VALUES OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
No greater opportunity, responsibility, or obligation can fall to the lot of a human being than to become a physician. In the care of the suffering, [the physician] needs technical skill, scientific knowledge, and human understanding. Tact, sympathy, and understanding are expected of the physician, for the patient is no mere collection of symptoms, signs, disordered functions, damaged organs, and disturbed emotions. [The patient] is human, fearful, and hopeful, seeking relief, help, and reassurance.
—Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, 1950
The practice of medicine has changed in significant ways since the first edition of this book was published in 1950. The advent of molecular genetics, sophisticated new imaging techniques, robotics, and advances in bioinformatics and information technology have contributed to an explosion of scientific information that has changed fundamentally the way physicians define, diagnose, treat, and attempt to prevent disease. This growth of scientific knowledge continues to evolve at an accelerated pace.
THE SCIENCE AND ART OF MEDICINE
Deductive reasoning and applied technology form the foundation for the approach and solution to many clinical problems. Extraordinary advances in biochemistry, cell biology, immunology, and genomics, coupled with newly developed imaging techniques, provide a window into the most remote recesses of the body and allow access to the innermost parts of the cell. Revelations about the nature of genes and single cells have opened a portal for formulating a new molecular basis for the physiology of systems. Researchers are deciphering the complex mechanisms by which genes are regulated, and increasingly, physicians are learning how subtle changes in many different genes, acting in an integrative contextual way, can affect the function of cells and organisms. Clinicians have developed a new …
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.