“It is when physicians are bogged down by their incomplete technologies, by the innumerable things they are obliged to do in medicine when they lack a clear understanding of disease mechanisms, that the deficiencies of the health-care system are most conspicuous. If I were a policy-maker, interested in saving money for health care over the long haul, I would regard it as an act of high prudence to give high priority to a lot more basic research in biologic science.”

— Lewis Thomas, book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"The Technology of Medicine"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is when physicians are bogged down by their incomplete technologies, by the innumerable things they are obliged to d…" by Lewis Thomas?

Lewis Thomas31

American physician, poet and educator 1913–1993

Related quotes

“Importantly, socialized medicine is not about health care, it is about control.
Are you going to oppose the government or defy bureaucrats when they have the power of veto over your spouse’s or children’s health care?”

Trevor Loudon New Zealand politician

"The Fatal Flaw of Socialized Health Care" https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-fatal-flaw-of-socialized-health-care_2815015.html

“What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system.”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

1994. Attributed without source by telegraph.co.uk http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6094226/Ted-Kennedy-quotes.html, 26 August 2009 <br class="br">Attributed

“In my view, the best way is to go back to the basics: the values, principles, and approaches of primary health care. Abundant evidence, over decades of experience, supports this view. Countries at similar levels of socioeconomic development achieve better health outcomes for the money when services are organized according to the principles of primary health care.”

Margaret Chan (1947) Director-General of the World Health Organization

"Exclusive Interview with WHO's Dr. Margaret Chan" http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/frontlines/global-healthiraq/exclusive-interview-whos-dr-margaret-chan, April-May 2011.

“I'm conservative, and even very conservative. But I'm quite liberal and getting much more liberal on health care and other things. I really say: What's the purpose of a country if you're not going to have defensive and health care? If you can't take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it's all over. I mean, it's no good. So I'm very liberal when it comes to health care. I believe in universal health care. I believe in whatever it takes to make people well and better.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Interview with Larry King http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/10/08/trump.transcript/ CNN (October 1999) <br class="br">1990s

“Nurses, as the key health professionals, are in a unique position to act as powerful advocates for a healthy planet. […] As nurses and midwives already constitute up to 80% of the qualified health workforce in most national health systems, they represent a potentially powerful force for bringing about the necessary changes to meet the needs of Health for All in the 21st century. Indeed, their contribution to health services covers the whole spectrum of health care […] It is clear that nurses are the backbone of most health care teams.”

Gro Harlem Brundtland (1939) Norwegian politician

At the International Council of Nurses Centennial Conference in June 1999. Awake! magazine 2000, 11/8 http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102000802?q=Brundtland&p=par

“[I]f you think you have the right to health care, you are saying basically that I am your slave. I provide health care. … My staff and technicians provide it. … If you have a right to health care, then you have a right to their labor.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

Town hall meeting in Lexington, 2009-11
2000s

“Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting Hillary in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money — hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

“Let's be clear, the lack of health care and affordable medicine does not only threaten the health and well-being of the uninsured, it impacts everyone who comes in contact with them. In fact, what this crisis is beginning to teach us is that we are only as safe as the least insured person in America.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Press conference, Burlington, Vermont, quoted in * 2020-03-13

America 'only as safe as the least insured person,' Sanders says regarding coronavirus emergency

Seth McLaughlin

The Washington Times

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-only-safe-least-insured-bernie-sanders/
2020

“America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Source: Free the Airwaves! (2002)

“We don't have a health care system. We have a health care maze. And we don't have a health care crisis. We have a health crisis. Eighty percent of the $2 trillion we spend on health care in this country is spent on chronic disease. If we don't change the health of this nation by focusing on prevention, we're never going to catch up with the costs no matter what plan we have. … And we've got a situation with 10,000 baby boomers a day signing up for Social Security, going into the Medicare system. And I just want to remind everybody when all the old hippies find out that they get free drugs, just wait until what that's going to cost out there.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Republican Presidential Debate, 2007-10-21, quoted in [The Republican Debate on Fox News Channel, 2007-10-21, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/politics/21debate-transcript.html?pagewanted=9, 2011-03-01]
Republican Debates

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Lewis Thomas31

Related quotes

Related topics