Exploring the continuum: medical information to effective clinical practice. Paper II. Towards aetiology-centred clinical practice.
Contemporary clinical practice increasingly functions within a disease management paradigm aimed at finding and implementing therapeutic interventions that demonstrate efficacy in clinical trials. Disease prevention, elucidation of illness aetiology and proactive health promotion have taken a back seat. Current clinical care often includes a 'fast-food' type of medical encounter, which frequently neglects disease causality. The medical community is presently challenged by unique administrative and professional adversities as well as undue commercial influence; these factors contribute to a lethargic response to escalating rates of chronic illness and to mainstream medicine's relative inattention to emerging research about disease aetiology. Individual medical practitioners and the medical establishment must strategically seek to advance patient health and maintain professional relevancy by a renewed emphasis on the following principles: patient-based clinical care, aetiology-centred medicine, and proactive health promotion.
Genuis
Stephen J
SJ
University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada. sgenius@ualberta.ca
Genuis
Shelagh K
SK
D002908:Chronic Disease; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D004194:Disease / Q000209:etiology*; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'