Genetic Medicine

In this volume, the author evaluates how knowledge of the contributions to disease of both genes and experiences provides a rational basis for medical thinking. He argues that this "genetic" medicine should help the physician to perceive the uniqueness of the patient.

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"Genetics," writes Barton Childs, M.D.,"is a biological science that, unlike biochemistry and physiology, developed and prospered outside medicine, and, until recent decades, overlapped with the latter only occasionally in regard to rare diseases. But now, ...molecular genetics is exposing medicine to genetic concepts that provide new ways to think about disease, its causes and its pathogenesis. So we have no choice but to examine how the ideas of genetics are influencing medical thinking today, how they should do so, and how we might use them to make medical education more relevant to what is happening in communities no less than in laboratories." In Genetic Medicine: A Logic of Disease, Dr. Barton Childs evaluates how knowledge of the contributions to disease of both genes and experiences provides a rational basis for medical thinking. This "genetic" medicine, he explains, should help the physician to use the result of the laboratory to perceive the uniqueness of the patient as well as that of the family and the cultural conditions in which the patient's condition was engendered. He thus provides a conceptual framework within which to teach and practice a humane medicine.
Genetic Medicine: A Logic of Disease is intended for readers interested in how medicine is--and how it should be--conceptualized, practiced, and taught. Medical educators, academic and practicing geneticists, and medical students will find this book of value. "The author gives us new ways of looking at old medical disorders and offers plenty of food for thought to stimulate changes in current thinking."--Virginia E. Kimonis, Teaching and Learning in Medicine "Barton Childs' book is erudite and informative"--Rodney Harris, Human Genetics "This book is highly recommended for a wide variety of audiences in addition to physicians and medical students: ethicists, anthropologists, social workers, nurses, and other members of the health profession. Hospital administrators, insurance personnel, and lawyers could also benefit, particulary in this day of managed care. Members of curriculum committees of medical schools and public health schools could also benefit. Fortunately, some of Childs's concepts are being applied to medical teaching already, but I know of no better synthesis in one book."--Perspectives in Biology and Medicine