Gradual progress in science is continuously clarifying and deepening our knowledge about the world around us. A powerful medicine-to-exact science transformation process taking place now is likely to give us unlimited power to control man’s organism and, therefore, will create an unprecedented potential for healing.

On this move forward, doctors are facing new challenges and dealing with the matters they have never dealt before. It can be stated for sure that the challenges which were brought about by advanced technologies and equipment has become a real paradox of the medicine development. The occurrence of these new challenges is natural and unavoidable. It’s only necessary to recognize and understand this paradox in time to successfully resolve it.

The paradox is as follows. A patient goes to a doctor and puts forward a set of complaints. What happen to him? In the past, doctors, having visibly examined a patient and sounded his respiration, could quickly come to some conclusion (it doesn’t matter how close to reality it was). Now situation is different. At the first stage doctors carry out a set of required surveys themselves and only then send the patient to the narrow-specialized doctors who, in turn, order new analyses. To examine patients, up-to-date equipment is often used; a lot of information is directed to the patient’s treating doctor. Making a diagnosis lasts several weeks or even months, but in many cases it doesn’t help doctors to exactly identify the illness. So, a lot of data gathered with advanced equipment results in minimum useful information at the outcome. What’s the matter with this?

Over many centuries to treat some diseases it was recommended to give an enema in the first place, then bleed and use purgatives at last, or to start with purgatives, then bleed and later on to give an enema - to treat others. Certainly, it couldn’t help much, but was in full conformity with the ideas of the scholastic humoral medicine. Thus, disputes arose only about the order of procedures and other details. Then situation improved, but calm and silence over the problem lasted for many years ahead, nevertheless.

Now the time of calm and silence has gone away. Comprehensive development of medicine and deepening of our knowledge led to accumulation of huge volumes of factual data. In the wake of the 19^th century people knew less than 1,000 diseases; now we know tens of thousands diseases and hundred of thousands symptoms. Moreover, a scope of scientific researches doubles every 6-8 years. To take into account and analyze this tremendous information volume, medicine split to dozens of narrow-specialized proficiencies. This is the root of the problem. And now it’s quite clear that only broad integration, and not further differentiation, of the knowledge may give maximum outcome in the long run. But before discussing the ways of such an integration, let’s clarify whether comprehensive and sophisticated tests and analyses are always required.

Not too often, by the way. For instance, by some unexplainable reason the blood of those who go to sanatoriums is tested on the protein and cholesterol content therein. These on-time tests don’t bear valuable information. Just in the event these results are compared with the data received over the last year or last 3-5 years and dynamics of changes throughout the years is scrutinized, then judgment about the processes passing in the organism can be made. One-year tests often lead to a knowingly false conclusion. Thus, for example, blood pressure of the people subject to measuring immediately goes up as soon as the measurement has just been started. And how often a cardiogram only reflects an anxiety of a man!

That’s why a bureaucracy spreading wide among the doctors is so dangerous: they are too inclined to believe in the formal results and overestimate the outcomes of the analysis.

Being committed to the state-of-the-art technology, we shouldn’t forget the basics of medicine. Indeed, the most perfect equipment only adds information contained in an analyzing and integrating mind of the doctors.

By the way, it’s quite necessary to understand that even the most perfect equipment may turn out to be not as good as we expect. Therefore, results of analysis may prove to be incorrect. At biochemical labs, for instance, the devices used are not calibrated; there is no standard program to prepare reagents. Who can be sure that lab workers didn’t confuse with the patients’ names? Thus, the issue of wide implementation of the automated biochemical labs is very acute. {The capacity of such a lab is 300 analyses an hour. This lab is capable to serve a few hospitals or even an entire town and will replace hundreds of doctors and lab workers. At the same time, the possibility of any possible mistake is completely avoided}. At present, hospitals spend about one-third of the total typical budget on the labs; despite this, lab efficiency is extremely low.

There is another one and, maybe, the most promising way of resolving the paradox: wide implementation of computers to examine patients. Using vast information base, doctors can receive a lot of useful data about patients at the lowest number of tests. Choosing a treatment, doctors will be guided by general symptoms and visual examination of patients.

Sophisticated computers will also enable to avoid endless repeated examinations patients are always subject to when going from one hospital to another or moving from one city to another. If complete information about any patient is available via the Internet, there is no need for repeated examinations of the patients.

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