For over a millennium, medicine has been a continuous conversation between observation, belief, and proof.
Early medical practice was shaped by experience, apprenticeship, and the authority of established practitioners. Knowledge was recorded in texts, guarded by institutions, and passed down through generations with little challenge. For centuries, progress was slow because credibility rested on who spoke, not on how claims were tested. Medicine functioned largely on expert opinion rather than demonstrable evidence.
A fundamental shift occurred when medicine began to measure. The emergence of anatomy, pathology, and later clinical epidemiology led to a shift in practice from tradition to observation. Statistics changed everything. They allowed hypotheses to be tested, uncertainty to be quantified, and long-held beliefs to be questioned. Evidence-based medicine was not only a technical advancement but an ethical one. It reduced the dominance of hierarchy and made data the common language of truth.
We are now living through another transition.
Never before has medical research grown at this scale. Clinical trials, registries, real-world data, rapid publications, and automated analyses are being produced at unprecedented speed. Paradoxically, this abundance has made discernment more difficult. When information expands faster than careful evaluation, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish rigorous science from poorly generated or misleading work. Volume can create the illusion of certainty without its substance.
For clinicians and researchers, the responsibility has expanded. It is no longer enough to read results. We must understand how evidence is produced, recognise bias, interpret statistics correctly, and question the origin and credibility of the data itself. Scepticism is not negativity. It is a professional obligation.
Medicine has advanced whenever it has been willing to question its own foundations. The tools will continue to change, but the core duty remains constant. To protect patients and advance progress, we must distinguish between evidence and authority, quality and quantity, and truth and convenience.
The future of medicine will belong not to those who generate the most data, but to those who understand it best.
MBH/AB