When We Lived In A Society Where

Go Back To The '30s, '40s, '50s, And It Was The Discovery Of Heroic Interventions, The Ability To Cure People With Penicillin Or Do An Operation To Stop Disease That Was What Saved The Day. Primary Care Physicians Couldn't Do All That Much That Really Demonstrated A Difference. The People Who Control And Work With You To Control Your Blood Pressure, They're Not Rewarded For Doing That Or To Be Innovative About Doing That. So, The Result Is Half Of Americans Have Uncontrolled High Blood Pressure, Despite Seeing Clinicians.

In Many Ways, The Effort To Study Philosophy Was My Rebellion Away From Medicine. I'm The Son Of Two Indian Immigrant Physicians, So The Natural Path For Me Would Have Been To Become A Doctor. I Ended Up Doing The Master's Degree At Oxford In Politics, Philosophy, And Economics While Already Having A Seat In Medical School. I Was Keeping That As My Escape Hatch. But My Hope Was That I Might Become A Philosopher Or Something Else Entirely.

The Definition Of What It Means To Be Dying Has Changed Radically. We Are Able To Extend People's Lives Considerably, Including Sometimes, Good Days.

You Know, 97 Percent Of The Time, If You Come Into A Hospital, Everything Goes Well. But Three Percent Of The Time, We Have Major Complications.

The Big Thing That's Happened Is, In The Time Since The Affordable Care Act Has Been Going On, Our Medical Science Has Been Advancing. We Have Now Genomic Data. We Have The Power Of Big Data About What Your Living Patterns Are, What's Happening In Your Body. Even Your Smartphone Can Collect Data About Your Walking Or Your Pulse Or Other Things That Could Be Incredibly Meaningful In Being Able To Predict Whether You Have Disease Coming In The Future And Help Avert Those Problems.