Can We Say "Cure"?

Most of the commonly prescribed conventional drugs treat only symptoms, not the underlying causes of a patient's disease. This logically leads to a perception that much of modern medicine is about management of chronic disease and prevention of more serious sequelae-not actual cures. However, most health care professionals are attracted to medicine with the mission of curing patients leading to the cognitive discord that eventually leads them to integrative/functional medicine. Though use of the term has been actively discouraged except in limited types of cases, perhaps true health care reform needs to reclaim this term and concept.