Agree with just about all of the above.
Doctors do know the value of preventive medicine, and are even - one might say - indoctrinated in it in medical school. And then the exigencies of real life kick in, and there are so many fires to put out that it's very hard to find the resources to make things fireproof in the first place. We haven't lost sight of it, are still working at it, but there's a lot of distraction in between.
We are making slow progress, though. In the field of coronary artery disease, for example, there are fewer smokers, more effective treatments for high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels and even diabetes, so that the outcome is much better. Now we worry about how to deal with the late (meaning twenty-years-after-you-didn't-succumb-to-your-heart-attack) manifestations of the disease.
Now if only we can keep from obliterating ourselves as a species through our own recklessness and arrogance...
[/end of political discussion :-) ]
