Medical science has been trusted for many years, and medicine itself
has come a very long way. It started in the 1800's where Dr Lister
came out with sterile instruments and surgeries, to Dr Pasetur, who
developed the first vaccines. It then went to the 1900s where the
first antibiotic, amoxicillin, was developed by Alexander Fleming. In
2001, m the first bio-artificial liver was created, and now, today, we
are dealing with HIV treatments, stem cell research, and robotics.
(Medical News Today, 2018)
Today, however, are we putting too much faith in medical science?
According to the NY Times, more than 1/3 of patients who have had
operations, barely reviewed the credentials of their surgeon. Patients
are not being educated on their choices and the mistakes that can
happen. This is called blind trust. (Chen, 2008)
Too much trust in medical science can lead to unnecessary tests that
can cause harm in patients. For example, a doctor may diagnose, and
prove his diagnosis with an MRI, for example. In this case, the MRI
was just given to show patient that he/she can trust him/her, not
used to diagnose. This is a way to gain trust from the patients, while
at the same time causing harm to the patient, if it was unnecessary.
The patient may have not been educated enough to question the
decision of doing the MRI (Fritz, Holton, 2018)
In my personal opinion, we should never trust medical science at
100%. Even though a lot has been discovered, and many things have
been helpful to the population, there are also medical things that can
be harmful. We must always question the doctors as much as we can.
We should educate ourselves before making any decisions for
medical treatments. An example I have is the current Covid
Vaccination. Many reports tell us that they have been successful in
preventing severe disease, and then there are other reports that claim
that many people hospitalized have also been hospitalized. How can
we trust science if we do not know the truth? How can we trust
science if we don't have clear reviews of their medical treatment?
There are also implications for not trusting medical science enough.
For example, when there are medical emergencies, such as the covid
pandemic, we must trust the science to be able to get through it and
get back to normal. People just have to question and get educated
enough to make the right decisions with their healthcare providers.
Chen, Pauline. (December 8, 2018). The New York Times. "Do Patients
Trust Doctors Too Much?" Retrieved from
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/health/18chen.html
Fritz, Z., Holton, R. (October 26, 2018) Journal of Medical Ethics. "Too
Much Medicine: Not Enough Trust?" Retrieved from
https://jme.bmj.com/content/45/1/31.info
Medical News Today. (November 2, 2018). "What is Modern
Medicine?". Retrieved from
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323538
