Medicine: Where is it heading?

I'm fairly certain that by 2025 most types of cancer will be treatable. Cancer is an error in transcription whereby cells begin to replicate themselves unceasingly, creating tumors. The mechanisms that cause such unrestrained growth are understood. Whether inherited, procured from the environment, or imposed by chance, unmitigated tissue growth is a function of either cellular distress or invalidated watchdog mecahnisms. With the advent of gene therapy it seems inevitable that a high rate of treatment will be obtained in the immediate future.

What about psychiatrics? Here the waters become murky. What is the reality of the mind? What kind of inroads can medical science make into mental wellbeing? Where in the conceptual chain of physiology-psychiatry-psychology does material science give way to abstractionism, if indeed it ever does? Is there such a thing as a reality which has no basis in materialism? Will science ever conquer such things as depression, low self-esteem, sense of purpose? Will it explain creativity and altruism? Do we want to? What will be the consequence on human morale if it does? These seem to be the more pressing questions facing this new millenium.

And why should we want to cure 'disease' at all? Isn't disease the weeding mechanism of evolution? What about overpopulation, resource depletion? This is the most abstract and least actualized facet of medicine. By doing good, are we doing harm? Like Asimov's 'zeroth law', will the Hippocratic Oath need to be modified to focus on the survival of species over individual? Who decides the future direction of the human race? To me, these are the fundamental questions of the 21st century. Until they are answered, every other breakthrough is subject to doubt and second-guessing. Let's establish a philosophical framework in which to place our progress rather than proceeding blindly, clinging to an intuition which may no longer serve us.