1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician living in the Austrian empire in the early 1800s.
He was concerned because so many mothers were dying following childbirth at his hospital in Vienna, Dr. Peter Attia writes in his book Outlive.
“He concluded that their strange ‘childbed fever’ might somehow be linked to the autopsies that he and his colleagues performed in the mornings, before delivering babies in the afternoons—without washing their hands in between,”
How did his fellow physicians react to Ignaz’s insight?
Not well. They ostracized him. He died in an insane asylum in 1865.
The year of his death, Joseph Lister operated on a young boy using sterile techniques at his hospital in Glasgow.
“It was the first application of the germ theory of disease,” Peter notes.
Ignaz had been right all along.
2: This story highlights the arrival of what Peter calls “Medicine 2.0.”
Before this point in history, illnesses were thought to be spread by bad air. Germ theory revolutionized our understanding of illness.
“This led to improved sanitary practices by physicians and ultimately the development of antibiotics,” Peter writes.
But did change happen quickly? The short answer? No.
“In fact, the shift from Medicine 1.0 to Medicine 2.0 was a long, bloody slog that took centuries, meeting trench-warfare resistance from the establishment at many point along the way.”
3: Unfortunately, that’s how change happens. It’s often messy and takes way too long.
But it happens.
In time, Medicine 2.0 would transform the world as we know it. “It is a defining feature of our civilization, a scientific war machine that has eradicated deadly many diseases.”
Still, for all its victories, Medicine 2.0 has proven far less effective in curing what Peter calls the Four Horsemen: Heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and type 2 diabetes.
The good news, he believes, is that a new era of medicine is dawning: Medicine 3.0 that is much better suited to fight these killers.
I’m getting ready to participate in an online program Peter is offering. I look forward to sharing some of the learnings in future RiseWithDrew posts.
More next week!
____________________
Reflection: Take a moment to be grateful for modern medicine!
Action: Share the good news about Medicine 3.0 with a friend, colleague, or family member.
What did you think of this post?
