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Each year more than 20 million inpatient operations are performed in U.S. hospitals |
 THEY SHARE ENDLESS CURIOSITY, A HUGE CAPACITY FOR WORK
AND A WILLINGNESS TO DEFY CONVENTION. THEY ARE THE
BY SHERWIN B. NULAND Read the transcipt of our online discussion with Dr. Nuland | |
homas Carlyle, more than 1 1/2 centuries ago, wrote that
"history is the essence of innumerable biographies." Indeed, the
literature of medicine introduces us to a cavalcade of colorful
and intriguing characters, an assortment of personalities that
prompted historian Fielding Garrison to remark that "all human
life is there." And yet, as distinctive as each of its many
outstanding innovators has been, through the many ages and
places in which their discoveries were made, there is a sturdy
thread of tangible traits that unites them all. Even during the
past four decades, which have witnessed medical innovation on an
unprecedented scale, that sturdy thread has not frayed. Nor has
the rapidity of achievement--with the linear progress of
yesterday succumbing to exponential acceleration--stretched it
to the breaking point. If anything, the new science and its
bedside applications have provided more evidence than ever
before that certain tangible human characteristics inevitably
accompany innovation.
| 2,397 Years of Progress | |