THERISE ANDFALLOFMODERN MEDICINE

‘For the family doctor to remain an expert resource for the management of the more complex conditions, they will need three kinds of capability at their fingertips: on-line decision support, so that their diagnosis and treatment choices reflect the best clinical practice: access to community based diagnostics and imaging; and telemedicine links with specialists for the diagnosis and management of the most difficult cases.’ ‘The personal doctor listens carefully to what he is being told. He or she performs the irreducible minimum of investigations necessary to establish a diagnosis. He confines himself to the matter in hand and does not stray beyond to give impudent or gratuitous advice. He recognises the intellectual limits of human understanding and the practical limits of what medicine can legitimately be expected to achieve.’ Which doctorwould you rather be?Which would you prefer to be seen by? The first is the doctor of the future characterised b