Previous Fora / 2003
Speakers
Knowledge and quality of life
Do Medical Advances Improve the Quality of Life?
Professor Harvey V. Fineberg,
President, Institute of Medicine, The National Academies, USA
Abstract
Contemporary science, mainly through an empirical and reductionist research strategy, has provided unprecedented insight into biological processes in health and disease. Scientific progress, however, does not automatically result in improvements in health or in the quality of life. Advances in basic research must first be translated into better preventives and treatments, and move from the laboratory to the bedside, or from the test tube to the community, within the constraints of finances, human resources, and organizational capabilities. When tested, many promising innovations fail to produce better health outcomes. Those interventions which are successful must then be disseminated to those who would benefit, and not be deployed in ways that are wasteful, ineffective, or harmful. Good health enables, though it does not in itself constitute, good quality of life. Advances in medical knowledge can improve the quality of life, but only when the intervening steps of product innovation, evaluation, and dissemination are successfully traversed, and only insofar as social and other non-medical circumstances support better quality of life.