Contemporary Medicine
2008 - Institutional Event
A century ago, the idea of
transferring a heart from one person to another seemed as far-fetched as
walking on the moon. Today, complex procedures such as organ and tissue
transplants take place daily, often involving equipment, expertise and
medications that didn’t exist even a decade earlier.
Rapid change in technology and
therapy is a hallmark of modern biomedicine,
the dominant approach to human health care for about the past 100 years. Unlike
older healing philosophies, biomedicine is based on the scientific method.
Through observation and experimentation, scientists look for the causes of
diseases and more effective ways to treat them. The combination of scientific method and
improved technology has produced huge medical benefits, from lifesaving
antibiotics and surgical techniques to sophisticated diagnostic scans and
exciting developments in genetics.
It’s also worth noting that
today, 70 percent of all healing doesn’t involve a physician. Domestic healing,
including some of the same home remedies our ancestors used, still plays a
major role in our health care.
Information provided by BCBSNC.
Successful mapping of the human genome in 2000 opened up countless new applications for biomedicine. Photo courtesy of the National Humane Genome Research Institute.
New technology, like CAT scans and MRIs, has become an integral part of contemporary medicine.
Telemedicine
Modern technology is inseparable from modern medicine. Doctors use it to diagnose illness, perform surgery, monitor patients’ health and even to deliver medication.
Now, besides improving medical care itself, technology is helping to improve our access to care. Through a number of pilot programs in telemedicine, patients in rural areas can be seen, interviewed and examined by specialists miles away. One of the most extensive programs is taking place at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.
Telemedicine could be an important trend in North Carolina, where access to quality care has long been a problem for rural populations. In some cases, it allows a primary care doctor in a rural area to give his patient the benefits of advanced diagnostic technology and specialized expertise from a major medical center far away. In other cases, only a trained telemedicine nurse is present with the patient. The doctor sees the patient strictly through telecommunications equipment.
Information provided by BCBSNC.
The Future: Biomedicine Comes Home
Ironically, one of the ultimate benefits of telemedicine may be to bring the advances of biomedicine back to the place where health care started: in the home. Someday our telephones, bathroom scales and even toilets could connect us to advanced diagnostic equipment that monitors our health and tells us when to visit a doctor.
Information provided by BCBSNC.