Logic in medicine: an economic perspective.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines logic as the science of thinking or a chain of reasoning or thought defensible on the grounds of consistency. Economics, at its best, is a logical way of analysing the costs and benefits of alternative ways of achieving competing objectives: it is the science of deciding how to allocate scarce means among competing ends. Thomas Carlyle argued that economics was not a "gay science" but "the dismal science." Carlyle reached this conclusion because the basic assumptions of economics are scarcity and the ubiquitous necessity to make choices. In health care these factors require the allocators of resources to decide who will die and who will live in what degree of pain and discomfort.