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At the intersection of drugs and technology lies a fulcrum upon which healthcare can reconnect to a broader sense of the human condition beyond its own or drift further faraway from what it means to really look after others. At this epicenter are driving forces, conscious and unconscious, potentiated by the linear algorithmic world of medical education and practice, which preclude true consent and thus empowering patients and caregivers to measure pursuant to what they hold sacred.

Influenced more and more by technological advances, an inherent fear of life’s ambiguity (lacking a sensible understanding of truth physiologic arc of life manifest as a fear of clinical failure thanks to limitations of medical education/training), and economic pressures, medicine faces the atrocity of undermining the principles of non-malfeasance and beneficence. Reclaiming or losing our own humanity depends on whether we acknowledge the necessity to vary how we perceive life and therefore the delivery of medical aid throughout its entirety.

If we step faraway from acknowledging this, even for an instance, we are likely to lose sight of what it means to be human. If we portend to believe that technology without rigorous moral and ethical scrutiny against perhaps the best frailty of humankind – the will for absolute certainty or, put differently, fear of the unknown and living during a world of ambiguity (which is actually what life is), – if we enter that realm, then technology will falsely appear to approach the impossible of having the ability to beat and even control the very nature of life itself.

Doing things to people instead of with and for the leads to unwarranted suffering, decreased quality of life and even death

Unfortunately, the practice of drugs emphatically touts clinical paths and outcomes are “unknown.” Guided as fear of “stealing hope”, “the patient isn't able to hear the truth” and lots of more. These excuse us from fulfilling our fiduciary responsibilities, and in fact, are a false manipulation of the clinical narrative.

Such a path isn't too dissimilar to others throughout history that decomposed the material of society by excluding individuals from living, loving, learning, growing and supporting one another. Within the medical world, this is often an insidiously iatrogenic path compared to the atrocities of the last century. I offer however, it's no smaller with reference to interrupting the common fiber which binds us all. Doing things to people instead of with and for the leads to unwarranted suffering, decreased quality of life and even death. Loss of freedom of choice is what manifests once we cease or fail to interact with the reality and embrace life’s ambiguity instead of manipulating it with fixed-false beliefs entrenched in our linear clinical algorithm. If we don't change, dehumanization becomes an interwoven thread of clinical practice. I might argue it already has.

Death is inevitable. Its purpose comes only after the ultimate exhalation of breath. intrinsically the conversation needn't be about dying and death. that specializes in how one wants to measure - whether it's for ten minutes or ten years - transforms the narrative from transactional to translational. This empowers hope and freedom and a greater sense of control no matter the diagnosis.

Realizing, accepting and communicating that there's no true unknown is the key to reclaiming our humanity. We all know with absolute certainty where every journey leads. To an excellent extent, we also know what the journey’s duration and course are also. We must find a path of actualization that result in obtaining the courage, to inform the reality.

I urge us to hunt new ways of thinking and practicing which may elevate what's possible in healthcare and beyond. Deepening our understanding of life, as against fearing death or thinking of it as a failure, we transcend medicine and are available closer to what it means to be a real caregiver within the modern age.