Fifty-four years ago I entered medicine courtesy of the United States Army Air Corps in the Philippine Islands. As we approach the millennium, I look back with awe on what man has wrought.
I have lived and worked in the golden age of medicine, but I had to retire to be able to step aside and view the changes in medicine with a degree of contemplation.
The explosion of knowledge in the past 54 years has converted medicine from an art to a science. The development of new therapeutic agents, the rise in knowledge of the pathogenesis of diseases, and the technological advances that permit sophisticated surgical procedures to become the standard of care have all occurred during this period.
At the same time, the understanding of disease at the molecular level has been like yeast that makes bread rise as it is baked.
Accompanying these scientific advances has been . . . [Full Text of this Article]
