What would you say was the most important advance in medicine?

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uclaussr

uclaussr

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Vaccines? Heart transplant? eTc...
What is your guys' opinion?
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BigRedBeta said:
antibiotics far and away
vaccines are certainly a solid #2
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Antiobiotics and vaccines for sure, but I think MRI and CT scans as well. They are used very often in the ER
 
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Open heart surgery

antibiotics

MRI/CT scan

Vaccines

kemotherapy

the hippocratic oath

the artificial heart

the discovery of DNA

I think there's more but those are my tops the hippocratic oath being number 1.
 
ChemistWiz said:
I think there's more but those are my tops the hippocratic oath being number 1.
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The hippocratic oath???

Which part, the one where you swear by Apollo and the greek gods, the part where you promise to teach the son of your teacher for free, or the part where you promise not to remove gallstones?

I love how people cite the hippo-oath as some kind of scripture or covenant when it literally is the most irrelevant, un-applicable thing you will ever hear in medical school.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for some kind of ethical pledge of allegiance (I promise not to kill my patients on purpose), but the hippocratic oath needs to die already.

Oh, and my answer is, obviously, SDN.
 
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The germ theory of disease.
 
The birth of Chuck Norris.
 
If any of you interviewed at UMD with Dr Foxwell, you would know the answer to this question...
 
seelee said:
The hippocratic oath???

Which part, the one where you swear by Apollo and the greek gods, the part where you promise to teach the son of your teacher for free, or the part where you promise not to remove gallstones?

I love how people cite the hippo-oath as some kind of scripture or covenant when it literally is the most irrelevant, un-applicable thing you will ever hear in medical school.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for some kind of ethical pledge of allegiance (I promise not to kill my patients on purpose), but the hippocratic oath needs to die already.

Oh, and my answer is, obviously, SDN.
Click to expand...

Most people, when referring to the Hippocratic Oath, are talking about the one line summary that they have likely heard which is to "do no harm." I majored in Medical Humanities and took classes like Clinical Decision Making. I never came across a case study where we did not at some point discuss the Hippocratic Oath. Most of my major classes were taught by practicing physicians who funneled us in our discussions, so I can safely guess that the Hippocratic Oath is not as irrelevant as you claim. It will likely outlive you, as it has already lasted almost a couple thousand years. Sorry Charlie.

Also, this thread..."how do I answer this question during interviews and what should be my logic behind it?"
 
Google, Wikipedia, and basically the internent. Especially information recovery wise
 
MeowMeowCAT said:
Human Genome Project
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maybe, if the promise of personalized medicine ever actually comes to fruition. as of now, no.

the answer is antibiotics and sanitation, in a tie for the win. Haiti is the only place in the western hemisphere that would be vulnerable to a cholera epidemic, and there are very good structural reasons for that. Virchow was actually one of the first people to start pointing these sorts of things out publicly - too bad he got the whole germ theory of disease thing wrong though :(

Ursa said:
Most people, when referring to the Hippocratic Oath, are talking about the one line summary that they have likely heard which is to "do no harm." I majored in Medical Humanities and took classes like Clinical Decision Making. I never came across a case study where we did not at some point discuss the Hippocratic Oath. Most of my major classes were taught by practicing physicians who funneled us in our discussions, so I can safely guess that the Hippocratic Oath is not as irrelevant as you claim. It will likely outlive you, as it has already lasted almost a couple thousand years. Sorry Charlie.
Click to expand...

and, once again, we witness the unfortunate SDN phenomenon of a pre-med telling a med student his business. The Hippocratic Oath had been around for two millennia before medicine actually became more helpful than hurtful, so if it stimulated any special emphasis in the practice of the profession, the effect sure was a slow one. Anything and everything the HO has in it that is relevant to modern medicine is established on better footing elsewhere through the work of bioethicists and lawyers. The guys who ran the "research" at Auschwitz and the Tuskegee experiments took the Oath too, you know. That's why we have IRBs now, not because of old Hippocrates.

the innovation of the white coat ceremony is only twenty years old or so, it's not like this huge old tradition. Oh, and the Hippocratic Oath isn't usually what's recited there anyway, at least not in its original form anyway, which enjoins us from practicing surgery or performing abortions. usually it's the Declaration of Geneva or something similar.
 
I can't believe nobody has mentioned anesthesia...
 
Obviously sanitation is most important, but some might not consider that medical.

Otherwise, antibiotics have to be number 1 and I don't think anything else is even close
 
I'd argue for vaccines, even versus antibiotics. People thought antibiotics would end the fight with infectious disease, but it is vaccines that have let us virtually eradicate diseases which used to kill tons of people, like smallpox and polio. Primary prevention always trumps treatment!
 
Probably getting over the notion that diseases are caused by witches, magic, demonic possession, etc etc...
 
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