Quo vadimus, medici? - Proposal of the individually personalized medicine

During the period of the Industrial Revolution, a steadily growing hunger f or scientific knowledge was seen and the words 'medical science' appeared i n the names of the sections of the 1836 Meeting at the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). The science of medicine has been dev eloping since the middle of the 19th century and has brought tremendous pro fits to society. Although surgery was established as an independent part of medicine by Ambroise Pare in the middle of the 16th century and is therefo re considered to be the first medical specialization, surgery itself has al so been progressively divided into various fields, along with the developme nt of medical science. Surgery is an art in which treatments for diseases a re performed mainly by our hands. Surgeons tend to focus on a localized dis order without viewing a patient as a whole individual. Surgeons should stri ve constantly to examine a patient as a whole person while at the same time sparing no effort to improve treatment techniques for specific parts of th e body. Personalized medicine is now being proposed following complete deci pherment of the human genome. Therefore, it is in the field of surgery that individually personalized treatments should be considered in the 21st cent ury.