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I wish the authors would just make their point instead of bandying about florid prose (which is extra out-of-place in a medical journal!) and inappropriately invoking political conservatism. It takes them until the 5th or 6th paragraph to even start to describe what they mean by "medical conservative"

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The reference to political conservatism (little 'C') seems quite apt. The quote describes the idea well--I'd summarize it as: not everything that's new is good, and we would do well to think hard before making major changes that might cause serious harm.

Those old-timers that did those old-time things? Sometimes they did them for very good reasons, even if they've since been forgotten.

Conservatism is essentially the philosophy of Chesterton's Fence, as opposed to Move Fast and Break Things.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

Irrespective of your own personal crusade of conservatism, it was like, right there in the 4th paragraph under the "What we believe" subheading, dude.

Furthermore, political philosophy is entirely relevant in a discussion about medicine, especially w.r.t. to general philosophy of medicine, and frameworks for medical decision making.

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