There’s a really interesting article from The New Yorker on assessing how good doctors and medical treatments really are. The author (a doctor himself), uses treatment of cystic fibrosis as an example. He documents how some treatment facilities have used the research on CF to improve their treatment of the disease. It is a long, but really interesting article.

A couple of things really struck me from the article - in the 1950’s the average life expectancy for someone with CF was 3 years. By 1966 it had reached 10 years and by 1972 it was up to 18. In 2003 the average life expectancy was 33. In some of the best treatment centers in the US, the average is as high as 47. One of the key things to note is that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation was a key player in gathering and funding the research on treatment of CF.

Article: The Bell Curve