El quehacer médico como paradigma praxeológico

Abstract

Medical progress in molecular biology and genetics has created the impression that medicine is becoming progressively more scientific, as is also suggested by the interest devoted to evidence based medicine. Some authors believe that due to these developments, medical services will become less interested in caring for the sick and more devoted to predictive and enhancement strategies aimed at surpassing funcional and morphological characteristics currently considered normal —elevated IQs, longevity, protracted senility. In this article we argue that medicine ought to remain a therapy-centered activity, with a predominantly pragmatic character aimed at attending the health-care needs of society. Only by insisting that its main goal is taking care of the sick, will medicine plausibly strive towards a society where access to, and availability of, health-care is distributed with justice. To this purpose, medicine must emphasize increased participation of all those involved, more rationality in the use of diagnostic and therapeutic resources, a closer alliance between clinical medicine and public health and, finally, a greater commitment to humanistic education for health care providers since, being a social practice, medicine is necessarily steeped in ethics which must be understood and adopted by all those involved.