Why Preventative Medicine Will Never Fully Replace Curative Medicine

Cambridge physicist David Deutsch’s talk on Ted.com, though on the universe and global warming, illuminates an interesting problem in medicine.

Preventative medicine is only enabled when we what we want to prevent is known.  Often, we do not know of problems until they are looming.

Curative medicine then is essential to solving those problems that we do not recognize before they become problems.  To use David Deutsch’s example, 30 years ago, scientists thought we were headed for an ice age, not a planet of melted ice caps.  Prevention of global warming is a great notion but its already too late.  Its time to search for remediation.

Often times, particularly in medicine, there is simply not enough foresight to practice prevention and cure are the only way to go.

~ by djstrouse on April 7, 2008.