Abstract
When a 16-year old Chinese girl, Ye Shiwen, swims at a speed that even the world's best male swimmers struggle to match, and Usain Bolt and his fellow sprinters run like the wind, our minds turn to the limits of human endeavour. 1 Health, as the Olympic Games have reminded us, is the purpose of medicine. The World Health Organization's age-old mantra of ‘Health for All’ often seems an abstract slogan since health is a concept we struggle harder to define than disease. Perhaps the definition of health is being in the peak of physical condition that allows an athlete to win an Olympic gold medal? Perhaps it is nothing more than happiness, despite our physical state?
If the Olympic Games conjure images of finely honed athletes in our minds, the 2012 Olympic Games will be remembered by health professionals for the way the opening ceremony celebrated the National Health Service (NHS). Dancing doctors and nurses, Great Ormond Street Hospital, a pulse beat that circled the Olympic Stadium, were prominent features of a ‘Best of British’ sequence masterminded by film director Danny Boyle.
This was too political a statement for some. A visceral and ideological struggle for the soul of the NHS in 2012 cannot have escaped Boyle, an astute social commentator. Did celebrating the place of the NHS in the nation's psyche support the arguments and the campaign of this year's antireformists? Possibly, but Boyle also reminded of us that along with James Bond, Mr Bean, William Shakespeare, cricket, David Beckham, the Queen and heroic failure, the NHS is a peculiarly British institution. In a planet dominated by insurance-based health systems, the NHS remains an experiment that fascinates the world and provokes fierce and passionate debate within these shores.
But the Olympic Games also reminded us that flaws and failure are much more common than success. Perfection is a dream that is rarely achieved. Are humans ever more perfect than the moment of birth? Only one person or team wins a gold medal in any event. Our lives and bodies are flawed. Our organs, dreams and aspirations fail. The NHS is no different. Flaws and failures are ever present; perfection is a dream impossible to achieve. Yet the NHS strives, in its way, for ‘Health for All’ – and that human endeavour might be more fulfilling once health itself is satisfactorily defined.