Overheated news of a 'medical breakthrough'.

Medicine pays almost exclusive homage to the shock of the new. We place a constant emphasis on novelty. We trumpet the most recent discoveries and give far too little attention to the concepts underlying our accumulated knowledge. Ours is an era of the instantaneous and immediate fact, a time when traditions are dissolving and the perceived need for a dialogue with the past is all but invisible. Richard Horton1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]