Science, technology, and the environment - Population and healing - The business of medicine

6 important questions on Science, technology, and the environment - Population and healing - The business of medicine

How did the culture of medicine change after 1945?

  • After 1945 the culture of medicine changed dramatically, thanks in no small part to the example of government intervention in many sectors of the economy during the war.
  • In the US, the success of large government-funded research undertakings such as the Manhattan Project convinced many politicians that public funding for the battle against disease could yield equally impressive results in a very short span of time.

What did politicians stress about medicine? Name an example.

  • Politicians and medical practitioners increasingly stressed the importance of prevention, health education, infant care, and the need for government intervention to encourage appropriate lifestyle choices.
  • Britain's Labour government undertook what was perhaps the most comprehensive reform of medicine immediately after the war when it created the National Health Service (NHS).

What called into question the long-term viability of the Medicare system for the elderly?

Skyrocketing costs - especially for hospital services and prescription drugs - also called into question the long-term viability of the Medicare system of the elderly.
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What did treatment of kidney disease illustrate?

  • The unanticipated costs associated with medical breakthroughs, and the growing set of ethical dilemmas involving access to new treatments and procedures, is illustrated by the treatment of kidney disease.
  • In the early 1960s an American physician pioneered a dialysis treatment that enabled patients with long-term kidney failure to live in reasonable comfort. But the treatment was very expensive, and no insurer would offer coverage. Only persons who could afford the approximately $30,000 per year were even considered for acceptance into the first treatment facilities.

What contributed to the depersonalization of the doctor-patient relationship?

Increasing specialization, the advent of state-managed health systems, the burgeoning of large, metropolitan hospitals with their highly skilled physicians and ability to purchase the last technology, the growing propensity of patients to seek specialized hospital care, the advent of drugstore chains where pharmacists became hourly employees, and escalating insurance costs all contributed to a seismic depersonalization of the doctor-patient relationship.

Who stripped the physician of his or her once-valued autonomy?

Hospital conglomerates, pharmaceutical companies, insurance providers - including government agencies - stripped the physician of his or her once-valued autonomy.

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