Good medicine is a global goal

Organized medicine here is helped by its involvement with a physician organization that has a worldwide perspective.

Editorial. Oct. 25, 2004.

The concept of "globalization," so much in vogue whenever the discussion turns to economics, technology or social issues, applies to medicine as well. It has become a constant fact of life for the greater medical community, and one that carries both positive and negative connotations.

The Internet is an example of the positive potential of globalization in furthering medical research and patient care. The near-instantaneous transmission of data and the ability to exchange ideas and thoughts with colleagues around the world at the touch of a button has led the way to new levels of cooperation and collaboration.

On the other hand, airline jet travel has made possible the spread of communicable diseases in a matter of hours or days, bringing new pressures to the public health community. The threat of terrorist action, including bioterrorism, brings even more urgency to the situation.

It was in the wake of a global calamity of a different type -- the horrors of Word War II -- that physicians from 27 national medical associations got together in 1947 to officially create the World Medical Assn. That meeting in Paris was a recognition that physicians around the world shared a commonality of knowledge and interests and that the time had come to formalize a mechanism to address mutual concerns.