ABSTRACT
It has not been my intention to mount a wholesale attack on modern healthcare provision. I am content to support those proponents of scientific medicine who point to the many advances in the last century or so, and the dramatic impact these have had on core issues such as infant mortality, life expectancy and diseases which in the past were major causes of disability and death.1 Also, I do not seek to attack the whole medical profession as cynical manipulators of society, harbouring ill-will towards their patients.2 Patient satisfaction and other surveys indicate that of the many millions of individual encounters with medical practice annually, satisfaction in doctors as dedicated career professionals remains high.
