You might have heard of this new, alternative take on medicine called Homeopathy. If you haven't, the basic idea is that you take a (possibly active) substance, dilute it with alcohol or distilled water, and repeat the process until only the "vital energy" of the original substance remains. According to Hahnemann, the creator of Homeopathy (or, to be precise, according to the Wikipedia article), each dilution increases the potency of the preparation while ensuring that all traces of the original substance are effectively gone.

The efficacy of this practice has been called into question several times, which to me sounds less like a problem and more like an opportunity: how do we bring Homeopathy into the 21st century?

Enter the Nocebo effect. Unlike it's big brother the Placebo effect, the nocebo effect is at play when a treatment has a negative effect simply because the patient believes it to be so - the common example being patients that suffer from "side effects" when receiving an inert substance. While precise numbers are impossible to obtain, around 5% of all patients are considered susceptible to this nocebo effect.

If a nocebo "weakens" a patient's positive response to a medication, and Homeopathy is based on diluting substances, we can combine them both! In what I have decided to call "Martinopathy" in honor of its creator (me), I suggest the following clinical procedure: when a patient is prescribed a Martinopathic treatment for (say) common cold, they are first directed to a standard pharmacy, where they buy a common, over the counter, non-homeopathic common cold drug. They are then sent to their physician. The Doctor will take a look at the medicine, repeat to the patient "this medicine will not work" around 20 times, after which the patient is free to continue their treatment with their now-martinopathic medication. In this way the effect of the regular medicine has been "diluted" down to homeopathic standards, but this time in a scientifically sound way.

There is still some room for improvements. If costs are an issue, they could be kept low by martinopathing the medicine at the source - instead of yelling at a patient, a medical professional could yell at the boxes directly in the factory floor. It is not entirely clear whether the medical professional would have to be certified in this new treatment or not. But those are small details that we can sort after I get my Nobel prize.