The Dissemination of Medical Information

Many people have their sobering thoughts about the amount and distribution of information. Ours start with the premise that it has become impossible for any person to know at any one time all the medical knowledge there is to be known. A few laymen, largely those with a son or daughter enrolled in a medical school, are still awed by the enormous amount they believe the doctor has to acquire from books. Perhaps we should not wilfully destroy this image of omniscience. Yet it must be already abandoned. Most of the laiety and essentially all of the profession surely believe that the doctor's brain must work-indeed works better-on a carefully assorted and loosely packed collection of wisdom acquired from observation, experience, and reading rather than jammed with an ever-increasing burden of facts mostly obtained from the literature.