O Castelo Sitiado

Mais do texto de Bruce Charlton (que acertou o diagnóstico mas errou o tratamento! - comentaremos mais sobre o artigo.)

"In a condition of post-modernity there is no progress; merely fashion - there is no purpose, merely change. Society has become a conversation not an argument, a conversation without goal or end-point. Medicine, however, has not abandoned ideas of progress, neither has it abandoned the idea of purpose. Medical progress is seen in the conventional accounts of more effective surgery, powerful antibiotics with minimal side effects, successful prolongation of the life of diabetics, new cures for leukaemia, etc. If the purpose of medicine is to alleviate illness and cure disease, there is also an end point. After that goal has been achieved, the work of medicine is done, and the non-sick can get on with living. Progress towards that goal can be rationally and objectively charted. Medicine is modernity in action.

However, the position of modernist medicine in postmodern culture explains why there is a constant tendency for the boundaries of medicine to breakdown. Medicine tends to become engulfed by the surrounding aesthetic, feel-good, 'life-style' modes of thought which dissolve medical certainties into mere matters of fashion and preference. The plurality of views and lack of a shared moral framework has made cynicism commonplace, and medical 'objectivity' is cynically redescribed in terms of veiled self-interest. On the other hand medicine is inclined to burst its banks and attempt the subjugation of surrounding 'relativistic' territories using such 'objective' weapons as the prestige of science and the professional consensus of doctors."

Dissolver certezas médicas em modismos e preferências... A falta de uma matriz moral comum da medicina com a sociedade e o lugar-comum do cinismo... Como subjugar os territórios relativísticos que a sitiam se não com armas objetivas como o prestígio da ciência e o consenso de médicos? Evidence-Based Medicine!