iatrogenic
- Note type
- 🍂Fleeting Note
First time I learned about iatrogenics, was from reading 💀antifragile by 💀Nassim Taleb, however, the term was popularized way back by 💀Ivan Illich in his book Medical Nemesis (1976). Iatrogenics can be seen as the result of a strong 🍂intervention bias: the idea that people prefer to intervene in a system, rather than to leave it alone.
Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence. First used in this sense in 1924, the term was introduced to sociology in 1976 by Ivan Illich, alleging that industrialized societies impair quality of life by overmedicalizing life. Iatrogenesis may thus include mental suffering via medical beliefs or a practitioner's statements. Some iatrogenic events are obvious, like amputation of the wrong limb, whereas others, like drug interactions, can evade recognition. In a 2013 estimate, about 20 million negative effects from treatment had occurred globally. In 2013, an estimated 142,000 persons died from adverse effects of medical treatment, up from an estimated 94,000 in 1990.