Bad Doctors

Yesterday, I finished reading David Wootton's book Bad Medicine: Doctors doing harm since Hippocrates. 

The book is hard to summarize as the author admits he wrote three different books within one set of covers. 

He separates classic medicine and modern medicine into distinct entities. He argues Lister is the beginning of modern medicine as one should use therapeutic effects instead of accumulated knowledge as a measure of medical advancement. What's more, he focuses on the delays and setbacks in medical development that were truly troublesome to read about.  Alongside this, he illustrates how well-meaning doctors for centuries have harmed patients through ineffective and dangerous therapies such as bloodletting.

It was a great read: well written, researched and argued. 

And, it has changed me and how I view medicine and its history.  I now see a more clear line between medicine as a science and as a technology. I am also far more aware of personal, and social barriers to improvements in care.

Interestingly, I felt a  link between the themes of this book and those made in the documentary Who killed the electric car? Although they focus on very different issues, they both underline the multiple institutional and often irrational reasons for the destruction of really good ideas.