|
Department of Cardiac Surgery Good Samaritan Hospital Mt. Vernon, Illinois, USA
|
|
Shortly after the submission of this editorial, a massive terrorist attack took place in the United States (US) on September 11, 2001. This tragedy killed over 6,000 people and injured countless more both physically and emotionally. Many of those killed and injured were from other countries as well. Clearly, this has created inter-national outrage and has focused international awareness, fear, and concern for the whole problem of terrorism and what it represents. I think all of us in the cardiothoracic community are united in extending our sympathies and sorrow to the families, relatives, and friends so deeply affected by this immense tragedy. I have been personally moved by emails received from colleagues around the world expressing their condolences and support. Hopefully, it will bring us all closer together to work in a common effort to not only rid the world of terrorism, but to try and understand the conditions that spawned it, and ultimately come to the realization that we are all human beings sharing this fragile planet for such a short time. Perhaps by assisting others and fostering common goals and objectives, as I have tried to cover in this editorial, we are — in fact — helping ourselves as well.
Furthermore, medicine is one of the few spheres of human activity in which the purposes are unambiguously altruistic — in itself, a remarkable achievement.1
With the advent of humanism during the Renaissance, medicine moved from the stagnant theories of the four bodily humors — blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile — to a more focused understanding of human anatomy and physiology. The explosive expanded growth, however, came over the last two centuries with notable advances in chemistry, cellular biology, genetics, anes-thesia, microbiology, body imaging, and pharmacology.1
The challenges of the 21st century are numerous. Against the . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Copyright © 2001 by SAGE Publications
