Why “do no harm” might be harming modern medicine

Recently, while reading The History of Medicine by William Bynum, I was struck by a line that quietly reframed a great deal of what we claim to believe about our profession. Reflecting on how medicine has evolved, Bynum writes: “When in doubt, remember the Hippocratic injunction that health is most likely to be found in the middle way.”

That notion, nuanced, modest, and deeply clinical, feels worlds apart from …

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