Is Medicine Still Good for Us? (The Big Idea)

One of two new titles in Thames & Hudson’s ‘Big Idea’ series, this lucid analysis lays out the debate surrounding the escalating costs, both financial and ethical, of medicine in the modern world. The sophistication of modern medicine is an exceptional feat in which many of us benefit from unprecedented levels of care. Yet medical progress comes at a price: resistance to antibiotics, ever-mutating superbugs and the unintended yet devastating consequences of prescribing opiates are all part of today’s medical landscape. Is the natural human experience being over ‘medicalized’ as we seek pharmaceutical remedies for every kind of suffering? Are its astronomical costs furthering global inequality? Where has modern medicine failed us and how does it need to change? This incisive and provocatively illustrated volume interrogates the economics and ethics of modern practices and the impact they have on all our lives.