Correspondence

The future of medicine: The third approach is to focus on

01
a students’ perspective
arena Riquelme Every 15 years, the UN commits to new
goals for promoting world health. As
medical students at Technion, Haifa,
Israel, we discuss here our views on
02 what the UN’s objectives should be in
the next 15 years.
arena Riquelme We regard medical care as a
basic human right and believe that
03 every human being should receive
appropriate medical treatment
arena Riquelme irrespective of sex, ethnic origin, or
culture. We follow this approach to
04 medical care daily in Israel, where
diverse populations live alongside each
arena Riquelme other.
05 We suggest three essential
approaches for the advancement of
arena Riquelme health worldwide. The first approach
6-7 is education: forming a self-sustaining
2 notes: society in developing countries is of
paramount importance. Aid, which
often comes in monetary contributions
by foreign entities, is a short-term
solution, not a long-lasting one.1 We
geriatric medicine: the population of
elderly people is growing worldwide,6
and these elderly patients need
specialised care. 7 Moreover, a
change of mindset is needed, from
one that focuses on longevity to
one that seeks to enhance quality
of life. The attention given to the
growing population of elderly people
is insufficient. 6 Hence, we think
geriatrics should be emphasised
in medical education, almost to
the same extent as paediatrics. To
“honor the aged” (Leviticus 19:32) is
a universal value that ought to guide
our actions.
We hope that accomplishment
of these goals will advance health
worldwide.
We declare no competing interests.
We thank Mira Abu-Salem, Meni Amran, Alaa A
Arraf, Alex Bebin, Tal Ben Kiki, Reut Book, Binyamin
Eisen, Ravit Gabay, Uriel Israeli, Ido Livneh, Diklah
Sebag, Yehuda Sabiner, Hodaya Stein, and Ariel
Weiss for their contribution to the discussion we
had with Richard Horton (Editor of The Lancet),
which is summarised here.

8-9 should strive to achieve economic *Oded Bodner, Jeries Nashashibi,

2 notes: independence and develop thriving
societies that maintain their own
health-care systems in all countries. In
10 our opinion, education can empower
people from any country to become
arena Riquelme
doctors and teachers of the future.
Our second suggested approach
11 is preventive medicine: according
to WHO,2 the four leading causes of
arena Riquelme mortality and health expenditure
12 worldwide are cancer, diabetes,
cardiovascular disease, and chronic
arena Riquelme lung disease. Disturbingly, an
escalation in their prevalence is
mainly due to the rise in longevity
and harmful lifestyles. Thus,
preventive medicine should use two
13
different, supplementary strategies.
arena Riquelme
The first strategy should focus on
Published Online
14 January 15, 2016
research into the aforementioned
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ morbidities to reduce chances of
arena Riquelme S0140-6736(16)00096-9 disease development.3,4 The second
15 strategy should aim to reduce
lifestyle behaviours that cause these
arena Riquelme
morbidities, such as smoking and high
sugar diet.5
Ofrat Beyar Katz, Dvir Shechter
bodnero@campus.technion.ac.il
Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa 3525433, Israel
1 Travis P, Bennett S, Haines A, et al. Overcoming
health-systems constraints to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals. Lancet 2004;
364: 900–96.
2 Beaglehole R, Yach D. Globalisation and the
prevention and control of non-communicable
disease: the neglected chronic diseases of
adults. Lancet 2003; 362: 903–08.
3 Taylor F, Huffman MD, Macedo AF, et al.
Statins for the primary prevention of
cardiovascular disease.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2013; 1: CD004816.
4 Koutsky LA, Ault KA, Wheeler CM, et al.
A controlled trial of a human papillomavirus
type 16 vaccine. N Engl J Med 2002;
347: 1645–51.
5 Beaglehole R, Bonita R, Horton R, et al.
Priority actions for the non-communicable
disease crisis. Lancet 2011; 377: 1438–47.
6 Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on the
Future Health Care Workforce for Older
Americans. Retooling for an aging America:
building the health care workforce. 2008.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/
NBK215401/ (accessed May 21, 2015).
7 Berner YN. Geriatric medicine—between the
blessing of modern medicine and the curse of
aging. Harefuah 2008; 147: 722–24, 749, 748
(in Hebrew).
Department of Error
Le Page E, Veillard D, Laplaud DA, et al, for the
COPOUSEP investigators and West Network for
Excellence in Neuroscience. Oral versus
intravenous high-dose methylprednisolone for
treatment of relapses in patients with multiple
sclerosis (COPOUSEP): a randomised, controlled,
double-blind, non-inferiority trial. Lancet 2015;
386: 974–81—In the appendix of this Article,
a table of outcomes for the intention-to-treat
population was unintentionally omitted. The
appendix has been updated as of Jan 21, 2016.
Valgimigli M, Gargiulo G, Jüni P. Radial versus
femoral access for cardiac catheterisation—
Authors’ reply. Lancet 2015; 386: 2394 —In this
Correspondence (Dec 12), Giuseppe Gargiulo’s
name was misspelt. This correction has been
made to the online version as of Jan 21, 2016.
Snyder A. Henry Krum. Lancet 2016; 387: 120—
In this Obituary, the date of birth should be
March 6, 1958. This correction has been made
to the online version as of Jan 15, 2016.
Kivimäki M, Batty GD, Singh-Manoux A. Pointing
the FINGER at multimodal dementia prevention.
Lancet 2015; 386: 1626–27—In this
Correspondence (Oct 24), G David Batty’s
name was misspelt. This correction has been
made to the online version as of Jan 21, 2016.

340 www.thelancet.com Vol 387 January 23, 2016

Annotations

The future of medicine: A students' perspective

Bodner, Oded; Nashashibi, Jeries; Katz, Ofrat Beyar; Shechter, Dvir

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