EXTENDING THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY MEDICINE INTO CLINICAL SCIENCES

Abstract

Well into the yester years of medicine it got divided in public health and clinical medicine. Battered and fearful of the raging epidemics which decided history and fate of human endeavors’ and congregations, public health quickly developed the science of counting and using numbers to make decisions to preserve health, the science of Epidemiology. Definitions became precise including definitions of abnormality. Need to act before the disease hit became well known as simple things like full pants, full sleeved shirts and mosquito nets protected armies from malaria out breaks. Epidemiology blossomed as the knowledge of distribution and determinants of disease making huge differences on disease burdens and saving millions of lives. But response to disease, clinical medicine, still remained an important determinant of what should be done in the health sector as it was the diseased, not the healthy who controlled the decisions on what should be done on health. Costly corporate, highly technical medical institutions with cutting edge treatment and investigation technology swayed decision makers mood on what to invest in regardless of the magnitude of impact that the intervention would have on health versus the resources being spent on ensuring it.