14 DAY TRIAL // In his work “The Art,” the ancient Greek Hippocrates wrote, more than 2,500 years before the modern era, that medial practitioners were not scientists, but artists, and that their art was using their knowledge to do good. Healthcare providers were also described as people who knew when to use their medical techniques on a patient, and when to refrain from doing so, and the wisdom to know the difference was summed up beautifully in the words, “Do no harm.” These guidelines are still in use today, and experts argue that more of the contemporary medicine should revolve around these old concepts, Technology Review reports.
In their therapeutic arsenal, practitioners have numerous approaches to treating a certain condition, or batch of diseases. Any “intemperate” use of these options could lead to severe consequences in a patient, and Hippocrates knew this two and a half millennia ago. Most modern doctors taking the Oath believe that “do no harm” refers to avoiding causing pain in the healing process. However, the majority of treatments used for the more serious conditions involves some degree of discomfort and pain, and people accept that as part of their healing.
What Hippocrates actually meant when he wrote the undying words was that physicians should avoid putting their patients at unneeded risks. This seems to have been forgotten in modern days, when doctors subject people to a wide array of procedures that they do not have to necessarily undergo. One reason for this is, of course, the fact that the healthcare providers place the interest of the patient second to covering their own actions from a legal standpoint and to avoiding lawsuits. Others play the agenda of pharmaceutical companies, and over-prescribe drugs when this is not needed.
Very often these days, analysts say, doctors use a large number of medical procedures in investigating a patient, but do not take the time to actually talk to the people they are taking care of. Large emphasis is placed on treating the diseases, rather than addressing their causes and attempting to prevent them. Statistically, more than four million people in the United States alone have been exposed to very high doses of radiations from CT scans and other imaging techniques, which is not at all a good thing. Even before people are sick, they undergo a large number of such procedures, which increases their risk of developing the disease of modern societies, cancer.