International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 LETTER TO THE EDITOR An Invisible Virus Has Made Visible Many Underestimated Problems in Medical Education and Research Georgieva L. M.1, Borisova B. V.1 1 Medical University – Sofia, Bulgaria Received: 25.11.2020; Accepted: 17.12.2020; Published: 20.12.2020 Keywords: medical education, research, COVID-19 Copyright: © 2020 Georgieva L. M., Borisova B. V. Published by Archives of International Journal of Science Annals DOI and UDC DOI 10.26697/ijsa.2020.2.5; UDC 37.014.5:614.441/.442 Conflict of interests: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests Source of support: This study did not receive any outside funding or support Information about Georgieva Lidia Mladenova (Corresponding Author) – https://orcid.org/0000-0002- the authors: 9320-9203, lidia1001@gmail.com; Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine, MD, Professor, Department of Social Medicine, Medical University – Sofia, Bulgaria. Borisova Boryana Veselinova – https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9199-153X; Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine, Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Medical University – Sofia, Bulgaria. Dear Editor, In days of Global and national stress-tragedies, when The wise people have always given the formula “We are what we considered to be a stable value is shaken, our all in God’s hands”, in crisis situations. This formula eyes turn to a critical rethinking of the past. Today’s actually reflects a fundamental natural law – only the reality needs more than ever not only urgent practical great Nature, of which we are a part, will save us. Even procedures, restrictions, etc., but a very deep and unified the great Hippocrates advised the doctor: “Support the concept and strategy based on sound philosophy and forces of nature”. analyses. And against viruses, the greatest power of Nature is in Evidence-based practical action is the philosophy of our ourselves – in our immune system. Yes, but caring for behavior today. But do we have enough evidence and the nation’s immunity would be an even more difficult what are they? This is the question that still has no task for politicians and medical professionals, because it definite answers. implies larger measures for a rational style and standard Medicine is rightly proud of many of its achievements. of living. But how can this happen? But today, her pride is overshadowed by her inability to Preventive medicine has been on the periphery of the defeat a microscopic invisible enemy of human health. minds of health policymakers, in recent decades. It is We must be honest: it turned out that medicine is strong formally mentioned in International (World Health in new modern technologies, but it is powerless to Organization & United Nations Children’s Fund, 2018) manage an invisible enemy, massively threatening the and national strategies, but it is not a de facto priority health of the Planet. It turned out that medicine is poorly and pales in comparison to the dictates of clinical prepared for surprises – not only to meet them, but also medicine. The message of the famous Russian surgeon to anticipate them. Nikolai Pirogov that says “the future belongs to Medicine is an art of probability and it must permanently preventive medicine” (Komarov & Fishman, 2019; prove the most probable predictions and the most Pirogov, 1961), wait for the future, yet. effective actions. In the modern research and especially in medical Now, by accident, the means used are mainly from the education is extremely underestimated the discipline of middle of the twentieth Century, from this classic epidemiology of infectious diseases, sunk in the shadow epidemiology that we had forgotten. But now we are not of the so-called epidemiology of non-communicable the twentieth Century, and the media constantly diseases. For 4-5 decades, physicians have been taught suggests to us as fateful paths “social distance” and that infectious diseases as a cause of death have gone “social isolation”. Are these the main or only means of down in history – which was a fact for some time, but saving the population in the 21st Century? And how will now life tells us that history is a cycle, that medical a society live through social isolation? science is far from health prognosis. 34 рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa IJSA Future doctors are extremely limited in their training and Escape and hide from viruses should be replaced by a education on preventive and health-organizational successful victory over them. disciplines such as health policy and management, promotion of health, public health culture and health Acknowledgements behavior, hygiene, immunology, nutrition, medical The authors acknowledge the inspiration by globalization, medical prognosis etc. Prof. Veselin Borisov. Obviously, medical science and education also need accelerated creativity and development of new medical References disciplines and directions, along with modern Komarov, Y., & Fishman, B. (2019). The problem of technologies. transition from curative to preventive medicine Against this background, it is not surprising that in the 21st century (A brief overview of the state worldwide there is no unified proven concept of an of medicine at the present stage). American active offensive strategy in the fight against viruses in Journal of Biomedical Science & Research, 4(5), general. The big hope is for the vaccines now! But we 329–331. doi:10.34297/AJBSR.2019.04.000828 already lost more than 1 397 139 lives, out of 59 204 902 Melnyk, Yu. B., Pypenko, I. S., & Maslov, Yu. V. confirmed cases of COVID-19, reported by WHO (2020). CoVID-19 pandemic as a factor Globally, so far (25 November 2020) (World Health revolutionizing the industry of higher education. Organization, 2020), due to the small creature and we Rupkatha Journal, 12(5). continue loosing every minute more and more. doi:10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s19n2 It is quite difficult to predict what future lessons the Pirogov, N. I. (1961). Nachala obshhej voenno-polevoj current pandemic with the COVID-19 virus will give us. hirurgii [The beginnings of general military field But we will allow the conviction that two lessons are surgery] (Vol. 5). Moscow: Medgiz. [in Russian] already visible today: World Health Organization, & United Nations 1. The need for an urgent cardinal revolution in the Children’s Fund. (2018). A vision for primary scientific and educational sector of medicine is already health care in the 21st century: Towards felt. Recent research in this area makes this belief even universal health coverage and the Sustainable more grounded (Melnyk, Pypenko, & Maslov, 2020). Development Goals. Geneva: World Health 2. Global awareness of the need to urgently mobilize the Organization and the United Nations Children’s entire scientific medical potential of the Planet to Fund (UNICEF). Retrieved from discover a new preventive and curative era in the fight https://www.who.int/docs/default- against viruses, similar to the victory over smallpox, source/primary-health/vision.pdf malaria, etc., but especially similar to the antibiotic era World Health Organization. (2020). WHO Coronavirus created by Fleming in 1928. Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. Retrieved from https://covid19.who.int/ Cite this article as: Georgieva, L. M., & Borisova, B. V. (2020). An Invisible Virus Has Made Visible Many Underestimated Problems in Medical Education and Research. International Journal of Science Annals, 3(2), 34–35. doi:10.26697/ijsa.2020.2.5 The electronic version of this article is complete. It can be found online in the IJSA Archive https://ijsa.culturehealth.org/en/arhiv and in the KRPOCH Publishing Repository https://ekrpoch.culturehealth.org/handle/lib/71 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en). 35