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Innovation
When I first became a doctor, exploratory surgery was commonplace. Today, we don’t do it anymore. Innovations in imaging have created immeasurably surer, safer, faster ways to pinpoint the source of a patient’s problem. Similarly, advances in surgical techniques have shrunk most multi-inch incisions, multi-week hospital stays, and multi-month recovery times to mere fractions of what they were just a few short years ago.
I mention this because—amid all the furor over national healthcare reform—commentators seem to be paying so little attention to the pivotal role of innovation in medicine.
Setting aside issues of political polarization, I think it’s safe to say that most people would want everyone who needs care to be able to get it, and that most would also want to see costs brought under control. But I suspect many assume it’s impossible to achieve both of those at once—and that’s where the dire scenarios take flight.
In my eyes, innovation holds the key to avoiding “either