In his amazing book, The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs makes a great case that development economics needs to learn from modern clinical medicine and its approach to diagnosing and solving problems.

The discussion generated by my post, How Not to Adapt, made me realize that new media problems should be approached using practices that can be learned from four of the five main lessons of clinical medicine:

1) The human body is a complex system, divided into a large number of interconnected systems, that interact in complex ways.
2) Complexity requires a differential diagnosis. A proper treatment requires the doctor to identify the true underlying cause of the symptom.
3) All medicine is family medicine. It’s important to understand the social setting.
4) Monitoring and evaluation are essential to successful treatment.

Now I don’t believe that if we simply think through new media problems (such as the challenges facing theatres) using a clinical approach that we’ll reach a happy solution, but I think we’ll have a better understanding of the problems.

What are some of the problems?

- Disruptions (cellphones, talking)
- The quality of movies being produced
- The rise of the home theatre
- Cost

Of course there are many others. Do any instantly come to mind?

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