The hazard of headlines is that the public can be left with the impression that genius discoveries are a daily event in medical research.

No.

This essay in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, explains that many of the gains made in recent decades are not the aha! moments which would make a great movie.

The gains take patience, small steps—many of them—to improve survival rates.

In this excerpt, the writer shows how many children suffering from leukemia survive because of these patient, small steps made through clinical trials.

No new miracle drugs found. No dazzling discovery. Just plain hard work.

That is the truth of medical research, which does not make a great headline. It does not make for attention-getting testimony before a Congressional committee with the power to fund more research the disease du jour.

But this truth should offer us comfort.

We don’t have to wait for geniuses to have flashes of insight.

Hard work makes a huge difference in medicine.

This is great reading. The full text is offered free.

The Lancet

…”John Cade fortuitously noticed that lithium salts that calmed guineapigs could treat mania; Edward Jenner invented vaccination when he realised that milkmaids exposed to cowpox never got smallpox; Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin when he observed that one of his bacterial cultures was contaminated by a fungus that seemed to kill bacteria. Louis Pasteur once lectured, “In the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.” Such medical figures enjoyed lasting fame and gratitude; they all had found diamonds in the rough. These are the heroes of our medical legends, regularly featured in movies and newspapers. In short, myth-making medical stories are almost exclusively about the pursuit of serendipity—finding the miracle cure that has escaped notice from all others, and is ripe for the taking for the relentless doctor or patient who defies conventional practice.