Why doesn t the GALEN Common Reference Model cover all medical knowledge?
Because that would not be appropriate: the GALEN Technology offers a way to represent a clinical terminology, an underlying framework of medical knowledge describing what things are and how they are organised. It does not describe medical knowledge such as recommended treatment regimens for diseases because a) not everyone in a specific medical field will necessarily agree, and b) even if they did agree, the specific technology that is GALEN may not be the most appropriate way to represent such knowledge. We do intend that the GALEN Common Reference Model be a useful framework on which to hang other kinds of medical information, and we can demonstrate ways in which that can be done, but the GALEN model itself cannot, and does not, contain all medical knowledge. From the beginning we have attempted to be tightly focused on a single task. GALEN does not do everything or as one project slogan puts it: “GALEN does not make the coffee deliberately”.
