The Synthesis of Wisdom

Wisdom in surgery is not the simple accumulation of knowledge.

One of the functions of the leading edge of any science is to break down boundaries and standards that it itself created in the past, and is in a sense its very purpose. Something seems a contradiction often because it has been categorised within a framework with a set of variables, if we change the reference and expand the variable set then it might make more sense than ever.

I remember my Professor of Medicine once tell us that it would have been sacrilegious to even speculate the use of any sort of beta blocker in cardiac failure during his training. However now this is the foundation of management for such patients.

Surgical patients had to be transfused blood almost religiously till a cutoff was reached because anaemia was the anathema of patient recovery. We don’t do this anymore, or at least the cutoff has significantly been brought down.

The antithesis should not be destroyed, rather it has to be sublimely integrated to create the synthesis. And then again.