How Technology is Changing the Medical Field
Over the years technology has made a large impact on the medical field and there are more advances being made everyday. People who live in rural areas don’t always have the option to go to the hospital or to doctors appointments, thanks to technology patients are able to meet with their doctors virtually. Using the telehealth method can save you up to $100 per doctor’s visit. Something that is becoming more popular with in operating suites are surgical robots, but they are being controlled by humans. These robots have the stability and capability to preform with more accuracy. When a patient is in surgery, a 3D camera and dime sized surgical tools are placed inside the patient through tiny incisions.The 3D camera will give the surgeon a 360 degree view. The surgeon can move the robotic arm in small increments while a second surgeon is making sure the robot is making the right moves. Different medical centers have different names for their surgical robot. At Olathe Medical Center their surgical robot is named Dorthy. The fact that the robots allow for smaller instruments to be used can lead to many positive impacts on the patient such as leaving the patient with smaller scars. It also has a smaller risk of causing pain and infections. Another example is it provides a quicker recovery time and the patients will be back to normal activities in no time. Computers can be a major tool to preform surgery as best as possible. Computer Modeling is an example of how it can help. Computer Modeling can show you a 3D model of anything you would need to visualize before surgery. 3D printing is similar Modeling but instead of a computer 3D model, it’s a real life model of something that has been designed. 3D printing will become more popular in the future.
At a Los Angeles medical center they are trying to perfect the use of 3D printing to replicate real life models of smaller parts of the body that may be hard to see. It can also be used to replicate bones or organs.In a children’s hospital in Arkansas, they are able to print color coded models of a child’s heart which allows them to hold and feel them, studying the different parts to prepare them for surgery. 3D printing has helped making lightweight and realistic limbs for children and adults. In the past, Peg legs and hooks for hands were their versions of prosthetics. During the dark ages, prosthetics were made so a knight could hold a shield and a leg would be fit for stirrups. As years have gone by, 3D printing has become a great way to create a low cost prosthetic that is best fit for an individual patient. A big question that everyone is wondering is, what does the future hold for medicine? There are endless possibilities for what the future of medicine may hold, but sometimes one might want a realistic possibility. A vision that is being predicted is advancements to wearable technology such as an Apple Watch. Improvements that can accurately allow doctors to have access to patients health information. This can also help doctors have a better understanding of their patients day to day lives. Sometimes they aren’t always honest about their lives. Something that needs to be changed in the future is medical school, if you ask several doctors about the same problem you will most likely get different diagnoses. Around 40,500 patients die each year in the ICU from misdiagnoses. Technology is able to help with misdiagnoses because data is more available to doctors than ever before. The downside to the advancements in technology is that in the future less doctors will be needed. Some worry that there will be less doctors to answer your questions and to build a trusting relationship but, there are nurses and other first responders available to answer any questions that need to be asked.With all of the data thats being collected, a device should be invented where the capability to hold all the data that is being collected and when a patient is visiting, the normal questions should be asked and with that data the device should have enough information to pull up all the possible outcomes that could be made and how to treat it. This would save doctors so much time and also save the worry of misdiagnoses.
23andMe is a DNA test that can provide information on your health, traits and ancestry. You provide a saliva sample and mail it to the lab in the same kit it came in. 23andMe was founded in 2006. This company is meant to help people understand their genome. A genome is a set of genes or genetic material present. The labs extract the DNA provided from the saliva sample and analyze it to provide you with your 23andMe reports. The information that is revealed also helps make scientific discoveries. The downside to your results is it can make you anxious or concerned about your health. There are many conspiracies about 23andMe such as that this company isn’t just to be used just to find your DNA results, it is a way to collect major data and is being shared with google. One of the founders of 23andMe is married to the founder of google. Everything you have ever searched on the web is stored and cannot be deleted, this is a way for the right advertisement to be shown to the right people. What 23andMe is trying to do is find a connection between peoples genetics and traits. This company can use their data to sell you products. Google and 23andMe can sell your information to companies so they know which advertisements can appeal to you. Is our information really secure with these companies? 23andMe will know all your genetic history and google knows everything you have searched and your likes and can be sold to any company at any given time. Even if you don’t share your genetic history with the company, if a relative decides to use this, they have a little piece of your DNA too. Technology is being advanced everyday, it can be a scary thing but it can also improve all of our lives.
