In the history of medicine, Mara Selvini Palazzoli is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Mara Selvini Palazzoli as Italian psychiatrist (1916–1999).
Mara Selvini Palazzoli was born at Milan in 1916. Her recorded nationality is Italy. She trained at University of Milan.
Antibiotics, imaging and the randomised trial defined twentieth-century medicine; evidence replaced authority as the standard.
The test of medical work is whether practice changed, not whether the argument was elegant.
That the work was done from Italy matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Mara Selvini Palazzoli died in 1999, aged 83. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
