The future of radiology: what would Marx say?
To avoid becoming inbred and sterile, radiology needs to be fertilized by ideas from other fields, such as philosophy, political science, and economics. The interactions between radiologists and those they serve are powerfully shaped by such ideas, which often bear important practical implications for the ways in which health care is organized, financed, and evaluated. Radiologists who wish to ensure that the interests of their patients are well served and to function as effective contributors to conversations on these matters need to be well informed, and the quality of their contributions will depend on the quality of the ideas they have to offer. For this reason, it is vital that radiology invest in the intellectual development of its members.
Toward this end, radiologists need to be challenged to look at their work through the lenses of great minds in human history, particularly those whose ideas have powerfully shaped their understanding of the nature and purpose of the work radiologists do. The purpose of such encounters is not to indoctrinate learners but to get them to reexamine and, in some cases, rethink their understanding of radiology and its role in the larger community. Absent such reflection and conversation, they will be poorly armed for ongoing debates over health care practices and policies. Simply put, radiologists’ contributions are inevitably limited by the quality of intraprofessional reflection and conversation and encounters with great thinkers can significantly raise this bar.
To gain a deeper sense of how this might work, let us turn to a particular writer, one whose ideas are often regarded as among the most influential of any thinker’s ideas in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is Karl Marx, whose economic analysis of history offers provocative insights into many of the current challenges facing radiology. The point in examining Marx’s perspective is not to argue that he was correct on all points. Rather, it is to make more apparent the value of reading, reflecting on, and discussing the works of serious thinkers. Even when radiologists end up disagreeing strongly with the ideas they have encountered, they can gain valuable insights into their own deepest intuitions and experiences by assaying them against works of genius.
Karl Marx was an indisputable genius. Born in Prussia in 1818, he studied at the universities in Bonn and Berlin and then worked for a newspaper in Paris, where he met his collaborator Friedrich Engels, before being exiled and moving to London. He spent the rest of his life in England, dying in 1883. Two of his most significant works were the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848, written with Engels) and Capital (the first volume of which was published in 1867). Marx’s writings are often invoked in accounting for the histories of the two of the largest nations in history, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Yet the degree to which the Soviet program of Lenin and Stalin and the reign of Mao in China were true to Marx’s vision continues to be a hotly contested topic.
To begin with, Marx believed that economics is the key to understanding the course of human history—past, present, and future. In German Ideology, he and Engels described the organization of their thought as “essentially economic.” Human beings relate to one another in many ways—in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, creed, and so on—but the key form of relationship in Marx’s view is the economic one, for it explains not just what people think and feel but what they actually do. From his perspective, the course of history can be understood in terms of the relationship between two classes of people—the exploiters and the exploited. By definition, Marx thought economic power rests with the exploiters. As a result, other social institutions such as the state, the business sector, and even religious organizations tend to serve the interests of those in power.
Because economics holds the key to history, it is only natural that over time, human life itself should be increasingly understood in economic terms. Simply put, those in charge view and value others primarily in terms of the money they can generate. Success and failure are defined increasingly in terms of income and wealth, and decision making is dominated more and more by economic projections. Every walk of life, including the practice of medicine, comes to be regarded as just another means of earning a living. With time, it becomes less and less jarring to hear physicians referred to as health care providers, to see the profession of medicine treated as a sector of the health care industry, and to hear patients referred to as customers or consumers. Everyone, in short, becomes either a consumer or a producer.
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<