It occurred to me sometime ago that a great deal of medicine, also healthcare, now is pitched as a bet.
Want to reduce your *risk* of having a heart attack? Take these statins.
Want to reduce your *risk* of everything? Lose weight. Stop smoking those cigarettes.
...and so on...
I suspect that Ivan Illich was onto something when he said that what medicine had accomplished by around 1960 or so, was to persuade people to think of themselves as a "bundle of risks to be managed"... along with a whole edifice of professional managers to take over when your own uncredentialled risk management efforts become ineffectual...
no subject
Want to reduce your *risk* of having a heart attack? Take these statins.
Want to reduce your *risk* of everything? Lose weight. Stop smoking those cigarettes.
...and so on...
I suspect that Ivan Illich was onto something when he said that what medicine had accomplished by around 1960 or so, was to persuade people to think of themselves as a "bundle of risks to be managed"... along with a whole edifice of professional managers to take over when your own uncredentialled risk management
efforts become ineffectual...