ABSTRACT
Medicine is the knowledge and practice of maintaining and restoring health. Health is the state of a person, an organism, or an organ in which its systems are able to perform their functions without failure in the face of external threats and internal complications. Living systems are constantly meeting challenges such as stress; injury; malformation in development; genetic errors; invasions by viral, bacterial, and parasitic agents; cancer; degeneration; and challenging normal life events such as pregnancy and delivery; puberty and menopause; aging; and death. It is the goal of medicine to support, maintain, and restore productive functioning of life while minimizing suffering and doing no harm. The roots of medicine lie in our empathy for our fellow creatures, starting with our fellow human beings. Medicine is essentially a human art which is supported by observation, evidence, recording and passing on of knowledge and experience, training, and standards. “There is no one division of medicine by which we know and another by which we act” [1]. Medical science is inseparable from medical practice, as the ultimate signifi cant observation is the outcome for a patient.
