THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL

The Difference between Good and Evil

The Difference between Good and Evil

Introduction

Medical technology is today a feature not just of hospitals, clinics and GP surgeries but also of homes. The practice of medicine has been revolutionised by computers, digitisation, new materials and good old-fashioned laboratory research. Yet this has been accompanied by increased patient anxiety about the risks and consequences of medical intervention.

The introduction of new medical technology has not been so rapid in developing countries, but the sense of ambivalence is the same - technology represents both progress and threat. In countries with multiple healing systems patients can choose whom to consult, depending on their illness. In these countries a technological approach may be chosen as a first or last resort

Thesis Statement

Marketing is a fight between necessary evil and stern good over the adoption of new technology in medicine.

Discussion

The optimal outcome of radical prostatectomy as a surgical treatment for prostate cancer is the complete removal of cancer with the best preservation of sexual and urinary functions. But these aims compete with each other. Maximizing cancer cure may risk harm to urinary and sexual function. Preserving function at all costs could reduce the chance of curing the cancer (Sackett 1996). Such intricacy, requiring the surgeon to walk the fine line between removing the threat of the cancer and providing the least possible disruption to sexual function and urinary control, has become the point over which urologists and their patients agonize in their decision to proceed with treatment.

The surgical industry has been quick to recognize this need and to capitalize on it. Over the last decade, the industry has conducted an aggressive marketing campaign to sell surgical products under the tagline of enhancing the surgeon's accuracy and precision and therefore improving the patient's outcome (Kihlstrom 2002).

This marketing strategy is clever: It approaches both health care providers and recipients as consumers, and in both, it creates and thrives on fear. Patients hear and read that the new product may improve their surgeon's accuracy, and therefore, they demand the product, out of fear of a less desirable outcome without it. The surgeons fear that without the new surgical tool, they will be seen as antiquated and will lose patients. A marketing strategy that exploits fear, ambition, anxiety, and other subconscious energies hidden under the surface of the human psyche is not new and has been used in advertising and public relations for many years. Edward Bernays championed it by using his uncle Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories to revolutionize marketing and shape behavior and perceptions of the broad public. His concept was to link a product or idea to peoples' subconscious desires, rendering consumers or citizens vulnerable and easily influenced to want things they did not need. The “torches of freedom” campaign nearly a century ago was a fine example: To double the consumer base for cigarettes (smoking for women being taboo at the time), Bernays masterminded an advertising campaign for the tobacco companies that convinced women that ...