Does Medicine Operate in Scientific Laws?

I have read Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of All Maladies” which deeply impressed me with his skillful writing, engaging narrative, and interplay of science and human relationships. When I discovered he had a short book, I couldn’t help but get it.

Science has laws, but while medicine is based on science (like biology), it’s not a science by itself; it is more like engineering. Yet, Mukherjee wanted to find science-like laws in medicine — universal truth statements.

This book is what he has concluded based on his long career in medicine. None of the laws is particularly surprising or new, but they are deep descriptions of the core of medicine that can never be understated. You don’t quite understand their true importance unless you’re familiar with some of the problems with medicine, and that’s what Mukherjee beautifully captures.

This topic deeply captivates me. While I never liked biology for its own sake, and even medicine never seemed to appeal to me personally. The way he engages with it here is very gripping. Despite much of it already being covered in his book “The Emperor of All Maladies”, I still enjoyed reading them. What interests me so much about it so its problem-solving aspect. It deeply reveals the process of science, not in an abstract sense of experimentation, but in a more practical and realistic way of solving problems with incomplete knowledge.

While I was already deeply familiar with the limitations of medical tests, paradigm shifts, and cognitive biases, they were all delightful to read, and I was deeply impressed at how these topics managed to be so concisely written. He describes Bayesian inference in the simplest form I have encountered, topping even introductory statistical books.

The whole book is very concise. You can easily read in a couple of hours. Yet, there is a tremendous amount of insight. In a way, I wish I was reading it without the background that I have because it managed to capture so many essential topics so efficiently compared to other works.

While I typically give some summary of the books I review, I am avoiding doing that here. In part because the book is so short already, but in part because I want you to experience reading and learning the concepts and ideas from Mukherjee himself, which I can never do justice. He deals with the essence of medicine in its practical and therapeutic aspects beautifully, making the field unusually alluring.

I highly recommend the book. Even more so if you have never read anything related to medicine, science, or statistics. If you haven’t, this book will be wonderful. The fact that so much good content can be delivered in such a short book is nothing but a miracle.

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