# The New Modern Medicine

> **NIH NIH G13** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2021 · $50,000

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Modern scientific medicine is often said to have begun by around the turn of the
Twentieth Century. In the early Twenty-First Century, a new modern medicine reigns
relying on unique concepts, logic and science that pose new challenges for health
researchers and practitioners. This project will critically examine contemporary scientific
medicine, including its historical significance, concepts, logic, and science, through
philosophical research. It will answer the question: what makes scientific medicine today
the same modern medicine of 100 years ago, and what makes it new and problematic?
The present era is one of growing disillusionment and distrust in modern scientific
medicine. People are increasingly turning away from scientific medical expertise. For
those working in healthcare, public health or medical research, this project will provide a
deeper understanding of contemporary medicine/medical science and some of its most
serious challenges. It will be structured around eight real world challenges for medicine:
disease chronicity and comorbidity, multifactorial disease etiology, medicalization, the
hegemony of evidence-based medicine’s ‘hierarchy of evidence’, the relevance or
‘external validity’ of clinical trials, the meaning of population evidence for the individual,
limits of biomedical understanding, and the reliability of therapeutic evidence. To
achieve these research and health-related aims, several approaches in philosophy of
science and philosophy of medicine will be used; namely, integrated history and
philosophy of science (drawing on recent historical scholarship), naturalistic philosophy
of science (drawing on scientific work), and analytic philosophy of science (using tools
such as concept analysis, thought experiments, formal tools of analysis, and clear
argument). The major outcome of the project will be a research monograph published
through an academic press that will advance understanding within philosophy of
science, history of science, and healthcare of major philosophical problems impacting
contemporary medicine.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10114347
- **Project number:** 1G13LM013546-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** Jonathan Patrick James Fuller
- **Activity code:** G13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $50,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-15 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10114347

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10114347, The New Modern Medicine (1G13LM013546-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10114347. Licensed CC0.

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