By Khalid Baig
(Talk delivered at the 28th Annual convention of the Islamic Medical Association of South Africa. Durban, 6 July 2008)
I am thankful to the IMA for this opportunity to share with this distinguished gathering some thoughts about medicine and where we should be going with it in the future. Although I am in that stage of life where a person’s medical knowledge increases rapidly as he hears new concerns, new tests and new names of diseases from his doctor or his reference age group, the perspective I want to share is not based solely on personal experience. It is also built on study and reflection on the history of medicine and the interplay of various forces that determined the path of this history.