American medicine is a critical element with modern society. Statistics show that the overall population of the developed world is aging. When extrapolated to the world, the healthcare statistics are exacerbated. According to research, by 2030, one in five individuals within the world will be over 60 years old. This trend is attributable to falling fertility rates, higher left expectancy rates, and overall improvement in medicine. Each of these trends coalesce to form a much more dynamic healthcare system that increase the over life expectancy of individuals throughout the world. This trend of medicine shows now signs of abating. Currently the United States spends roughly 17% of GDP on healthcare related expenditures. This amounts to roughly $11,500 per person or $1.8 Trillion in 2020 alone. By 2030, this figure is projected to be roughly 20% of GDP indicating the rapid rise in healthcare relates cost, expenditures and investments. This trend is also occurring throughout the world, as the world continues to witness a seismic shift in the demographics of the world. Figure 1 below is aging statistics from the United Nations Population Fund depicting this trend on a much more statistical basis. Here, you can see that Asian countries are propelling this demographic shift in aging throughout the world (Adler,2008).

Figure 1 Aging Population

Medicine therefore is a paramount concern within these populations. As a result, it is my argument that more investment must be made into medicine to further expand and improve on the benefits that have been derived to date.

The history of medicine has a very long, contentious, and often heart-breaking history. Here, the historical context of medicine involves heavy use of slaves, and experimenting on then in inhumane conditions. It also involves a lack of involvement by women who where often deemed as inferior. As a result, for the better part of the worlds history, only 50% of its output was being adequately used within the field of medicine. The lack of investment historically form women and minority practitioners should now be a catalyst for the profession going forward. Historically, the world essentially used half of its intellectual capacity. Going forward, medical breakthroughs should occur at a much more rapid pace as more the world intellectual capital is being used within the medical field.

To begin, the reverend Thomas Thatcher published what is assumed to be the very first purely medical publication within the United States called, A Brief Rule to Guide the Common People of New-England . How to Order Themselves and Theirs in the Small Pocks or Measles. The publication began dissemination in 1678. Likewise the first medical journal was started in 1797 and was called the The Medical Repository. Here, the overall quality of information of the articles was suspect resulting in the creation of the American Journal of Medical Sciences, which was a much more fact based and academic source on medicine. Over the next decades the overall quality of medical literature would improve, helping to improve the overall potency of medicine throughout the world. Here the quality improved due to many physicians moving to Austria and Germany, which where considered the most advanced schools for medical training in the world. Many of the most prominent physicians at the time leveraged these teaching to improve their overall practice throughout the world. By 1896, medical journals where now becoming more specialized. The first known journal is that of the Journal of Experimental Medicine which looked to established a academic source for emerging applications of medicine. This was a very important milestone for medicine as it allowed for the widespread dissemination of innovative technologies to solve many of the worlds more pressing healthcare needs. During this period of the worlds healthcare development, there were many highly damaging diseases that impacted many individuals. In 1896, when the first issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine was published, the world was just beginning to recognize the retrocessions of poor hygiene and sanitation on the lives of others. For example, typhoid fever was a result of...

…world that mutations and viruses are constantly changing requiring the infrastructure to properly combat them. Likewise, the need for investment is exacerbated by the need to invest in future preventative measures.

Here, the need for future investment in the medical profession is paramount to the health, safety and well-being of American society. Over 1 million people have died as a result of COVID-19. As indicated in the history of medicine section, this pandemic is not unique to the world. There have been many pandemics that have occurred over the last few centuries, each requiring unique preventative measures that where not readily available as the time of their occurrence. The most notable of which is the black plagues which resulted in the death of roughly 25 million people between 1347 and 1351. Although uncommon these pandemics due occur and often result in large and excessive amount of damage

In order to prevent this occurrence more resources should be devoted to first xpanding the overall healthcare infrastructure throughout the United States. This includes increase capacity to help benefit those who have complications and other surgeries that are not related specifically to the pandemic. With COVID-19, capacity was so overwhelmed that individuals where forced to defer and even completely cancel important surgeries and operations. By investing in capacity, when a pandemic does occur, it is much more easily addressed as capacity constraints will not occur.

Next investments must be made in preventative research and care. As noted in the history section above, governments have been a large proponent of this. However, public-private partnerships should occur to better facilitates further discoveries and overall improvements in medicine. Through these partnerships, investment is encouraged as citizens can earn an adequate rate of return on their investment. This ultimately creates a win-win situation in which society is better able to mitigate the next pandemic while investors earn an adequate rate of return on their overall investment. Likewise funds can be used to help reduce the overall costs of medicines and drugs requires to prevent disease. In this…