Controversial take: medicine isn't an exact science

This one is going to come off as offensive to those from medicine. Hear me out - hopefully I am not intensifying the target on my back. Although, I have talked about this before, so the rest of this blog post isn't an unexpected disruption.

In one of my previous discussions (An explanation of how I see things), I briefly mentioned different disciplines answer questions/ do things in different ways. However, there is a lot of overlap in topics between subject areas.

I am in no way claiming I understand what medical school is like, but science is considered vital general knowledge, thus we learn it from a young age. I get the gist of what medical education comprises of; I also briefly had experience working in the health sector.

I came to realise medicine, like economics, has both a theoretical portion (i.e. concepts and results from precisely controlled environments in e.g. the lab), and an applied portion (i.e. treating patients). Each subject wants the applied portion to follow the process as closely as possible to the theoretical portion. Economics makes it known fairly early on that data and theory have a large distance. Furthermore, economics looks at aggregate quantities, so there is additional use of slightly more complex maths.

I have gleaned medicine is fixated on individual cases, which is logical. This is what treating patients requires. However, I have also gleaned medical professionals expect the theoretical results from e.g. biomedical labs should happen, so they take it like an exact science. The reality is, medicine is as much about probabilistic outcomes than the profession is willing to admit or consider.

The problem is compounded when medicine try to do, what they call, population health. Since there is a lot of overlap between population health and applied economics topics, it can be a contentious situation. This is where, either medicine and economics learn to play nice with one another to focus on solving issues. Or, we go our own way, keep butting heads and argue to no avail.

Then I ask again: "how much do I care about the existing state of outcomes?". I should say, the answer to that question is also dependent on people's attitudes.