The Essence of Clinical Medicine

Abstract

In this book – introduction to the kind of clinical research that would produce the (still-missing) scientific knowledge-base for clinical medicine (cf. Preface) – the point of departure naturally is the essence of the work of clinical doctors as distinct from that of all other professionals involved in clinical healthcare. Distinctive of the work of doctors in clinical healthcare is the central role in it of the pursuit and attainment of firsthand insights into hidden truths about the health of their clients. Such esoteric insights, ones of probabilistic ad-hoc knowing – gnosis: dia-, etio-, and/or prognosis – result from bringing general medical knowledge – gnostic clinical knowledge – to bear on the available facts on their clients. While thus distinct from other, ‘paramedical’ professions of clinical healthcare, clinical medicine also is distinct from the other species of (the genus) medicine: from community medicine – from epidemiology, that is.