Description
Paul Scherz explores the ethical challenges raised by precision medicine and its focus on medical risk as opposed to current disease.
Genetic technologies and artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the landscape of medical practice and patient care. In the emerging field of precision medicine, a patient's risk factorsespecially genetic risk factorsare incorporated into an all-encompassing plan to prevent future disease. But identifying at-risk individuals through technologies such as wearable devices and direct-to-consumer genetic sequencing can undermine the overall experience of health. The potential for overdiagnosis and overtreatment grows as patients are prescribed medications and receive prophylactic surgeries that carry inherent risks. Also, as the medical industry shifts its attention from individuals to trends in the general population, the one-to-one practitioner-patient relationship becomes strained.
Using the lens of virtue ethics and t
