Each country's medical care system will be unique in some respects and have its own particular methodology. Medical care and the indigenous culture are closely linked. Preventive and promotive medical care is far more cost-effective and efficient in promoting health than is curative care. The major hindrance to good health today for the majority of the world's poor is not insufficient knowledge of basic disease processes in our medical textbooks. It is our inability to translate current medical knowledge into changed human behavior in the lives of the common man all over the world.
Medical care is only one spoke of the wheel of development.
It is an important spoke, but not the most important. The economic status of a nation probably plays a more pivotal role in development that does medical care. Additional evidence that social, cultural, and economic factors carry more weight in the health equation than the medical care system comes from a look at our own inner city black population. As transportation and communication continue to shrink our world, medical students and physicians should learn what they can about medical care in other countries. They can become personally familiar with the health problems of poor people if and when the opportunity presents itself.