Introduction: Trends, Puzzles, and Hopes for the Future of Healthcare

Abstract

This book is being published at a time when the collective attention of the world has been focused, for more than 2 years, on the coronavirus pandemic. The interrelatedness of various facets of biomedicine (whether scientific, societal, political, legal, or cultural) has been vividly illustrated to health practitioners, researchers, and the public at large—often on a very personal level. It is now manifestly obvious to many that planning for the future of clinical and experimental medicine is a must. Although the task of predicting the exact trajectory of any profession might be in vain, it is essential that one at least looks at past and current trends in order to envision future scenarios and plan for them. We can thus shape our expectations about how the various threads of biomedicine could develop; these could then inform our preparedness.