The Five Phases Of Medicine

1. FIVE PHASES OF MEDICINE
Phase Description
1. Nothing (or not much)
we can do for you
Get hurt or ill, and you’re as good as dead. If you’re lucky (or wealthy), you may make
it into your 40’s or even reach the ripe old age of 50.
2. Cut it out Diseased or damaged limb or body part, chop it off or cut it out surgically. I still
remember when people in my grandparents generation called doctors, butchers.
3. Replace it When something is kaput, you replace it—using regenerative medicine, such as stem
cell therapy (e.g. for bone marrow transplants or even for growing new teeth) and
bioprinters to make new ones. $¢$
4. Self-healing Envision a future with self-healing microbes (based on nanotechnology) in the blood
and tissue that detect when a body part is ill and deploys repair drones to fix them.
There is no need to to cut it off or replace it, you just fix it. And perhaps with DNA
profiling, we’ll be able to tell what a person is predisposed to and provide proactive
treatments.
5. Eliminate disease There could come a time, when with technology (and G-d’s guiding hand), that we can
eradicate most disease. Yes, hard to imagine and with diseases that adapt and morph
into other strains, it would be hard to do—but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Copyright 2013 By Andy Blumenthal