What you mean by Diagnosis

Sun Tzu said, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

This is a very famous saying and probably you have already heard about in some forms.

The same applies to outcome of medical treatment. What matters is whether the diagnosis is right or not. The word diagnosis comes from Greeks, dia- (through, complete) and gnosis (knowledge).

Once the right diagnosis is made, it means complete knowledge of the enemy (disease and related condition) and yourself (various constraints on medical practices) is available. Then you need not fear the result.

Sun Tzu said, "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

Let's hope next time we receive a diagnosis, that it actually means "complete knowledge."

The English texts of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' are from The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art of War, by Sun Zu

Can you win all of your battles?

Sun Tzu said, "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

We boast of miracles that modern medicine made possible but these miracles require victims of predicaments to be cured in the first place. It would be better if these conditions do not happen at all.

As we discussed earlier, healthcare is warfare, and based on deception, it is the best if we do not need to mobilise its forces. Particularly any invasive interventions are to be avoided or minimised where possible.

Being healthy without any professional care is, no matter how unachievable it would be, the ideal. Then Sun Tzu also told us, the way to get closer to this ideal.

Sun Tzu said, "The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy."

As though Sun Tzu foresaw recent emphasis on preventative medicine. The better you prepared to fight, the less you actually forced to. You would ultimately be able to defeat or subdue the enemy without any fighting.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum - If you wish for peace, prepare for war. But it is not about piling up weapons but about elaborating strategies.

The English texts of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' are from The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art of War, by Sun Zu

All warfare is based on deception, so is healthcare

Sun Tzu said, "All warfare is based on deception." If it is followed by "So is healthcare." you would not believe it.

As you would not be buying medical paternalism which was so dominant in earlier times, you may argue against it by pointing recent emphasis on informed consent, patient/customer satisfaction, self-control and medical ethics.

But I think this notion is still quite relevant especially in terms of professional healthcare services. However the point is what should be actually deceived.

Of course, the health practitioner and the patient/customer should build mutual understanding to achieve the best results so this is not the case. Then how about their common enemies? Undesirable health conditions and the causes of them are what we should deal with deception.

Why with deception? Because when professional interventions are called for specific health conditions, they are already beyond human's natural coping mechanisms against physical, mental and social conditions. We have to deceive the agents causing implications to neutralise them and we also have to deceive our own defence responses against them to prevent overreaction or to revert irresponsiveness.

In fact, all medical interventions are outright criminal acts if administered by a person without credentials.

Like the enemy we fight against in war, the cause of our health problems are merciless to us. So we fight against them based on deception.

The English texts of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' are from The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art of War, by Sun Zu

New Year's Resolution

Just a few posts in last year, I would write much more often this year.

My Quest for the Holy Grail of Health Informatics has been not easy, but showing some progresses. However, there are some difficulties in writing these developing stories as blog posts, so I will take a bit different approach in this blog from now on.

Have you ever heard of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War'? I recently read through it and watched a TV programme on History Channel featuring this ancient wisdom. I was really impressed by its comprehensiveness and relevance for over 2,400 years and even today, with regard to winning over merciless enemies.

Healthcare is literally 'a matter of life and death' as Sun Tzu perceived the art of war. In fact, it is a war we cannot afford to lose and 'a road either to safety or ruin' not only for a person but also for a nation.

As Sun Tzu dedicated a whole chapter to the intelligence, it is of crucial importance in healthcare, too. Health Informatics is what it is all about.

So I would like to discuss applications of the principles from 'The Art of War' into Health Informatics and/or Healthcare itself here. I am already brimming with ideas on the excerpts to put here. I hope you enjoy them, too.

The English texts of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' are from The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art of War, by Sun Zu