Advances in Medical Technology Essay

The level of technology that concerns the health of people in the United States has grown dramatically in the last twenty years. With this new wave of advanced technology numerous controversies have risen up into the public eye. At the top of this list, in health technology is the materials and methods used in keeping humans alive. There are many different viewpoints on how far technology should be allowed to go. Technology cannot effect the patient’s way of life.

Technology is a wonderful invention that has changed the world. One of the biggest advancements it has made is it has changed the face of medicine. Just over the past couple of centuries, technology has gotten to the point where it saves lives. The Civil War is considered to be one of the most bloodiest wars in history due to the lack of technology in the 1860s. Men were having their legs and arms amputated while still awake with no pain medication. Men were dying due to the lack of x-ray machines, MRI’s, CT scans, and many other medical advancements since then.

Advances in medical technology and processes are a double edged sword in regards to patient Quality of Life. Chronic-disease management has changed such that previously, people who would have died are now being kept alive due to the technological and medical advances dramatically increasing life expectancies over the centuries. With the advent of chemotherapy, surgeries and medications, life expectancy can sometimes be prolonged at the expense of Quality of Life.

Keeping a person alive by excessive treatment might devastate the family and make the dying suffer tremendously in the end. “Advance medical technology that seems to one person a godsend, extending life, may seem to another a curse that only prolong dying. Dignity can be devalued amid technology focused solely on the biological organism.”

Going back hundreds of years, we can trace the history of health care. Although it has evolved over the years, it all has a common goal; to heal those who are ill. Technology is one of the major evolutions and now plays a big role in the health care system. It helps patients to be more involved with their healthcare. They can make appointments, follow up on test results, and contact their doctors. Back then, they didn’t even have all the medicine we have now, let alone the technology. We can only imagine what is in store for the future.

Medical technology encompasses a wide range of healthcare products and is used to diagnose, monitor, and treat diseases or medical conditions that affect humans. This may included but not limited too, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical equipment. Such technologies are intended to improve the quality of healthcare delivered through earlier diagnosis, less invasive treatment options and reductions in hospital stays and rehabilitation times. Recent advances in medical technology have also focused on cost reduction. Medical technology may include medical devices, information technology, biotech, and healthcare services. The impacts of medical technology may involve social and ethical issues. For example physicians may seek objective information from technology rather than listening to subjective patient reports. A major contributor of healthcare expenditure in America is the advancement of medical technology. According to several studies it is shown that there is a correlation between the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and money allocated to healthcare. One of the leading theories is that medical technology is growing faster than expected.

Medical Technologies (MT) is an essential factor when it comes to science . However, there seems to be a misunderstanding on who should have the power to control its use.The three most common figures that are usually involved in controlling MT’s are the government, doctors, and society.Each representative has its own advantages and disadvantages .In both essays ,”The Made to Order Savior” by Lisa Belkin and “Who Holds the Clicker” by Lauren Slater , medical technology procedures are executed yet controlled and regulated differently. Every figure has its own guidelines as to how to control this technology and at times there was no control

Technology can be amazing if used in the right way and not used to harm people. The genome project leaves endless results of what is achievable through technology. Could someday, someone build an entire human from xenotransplantation. Could someday, there be a drug where you will never die anymore. The life expectancy from the last one hundred has already risen fifty percent to seventy-five years due to medicine. Who says this can’t keep growing now that it’s almost possible to have a xenotransplantation where you could get a “brand new heart or lungs that were grown in a pig.” Also, the fact that we can now predict what disease a baby is going to or can have by ten weeks after they are conceived, makes me wonder are we ever going to have worry about getting a surprise new health condition in our life.

Rapid and dramatic developments in medicine and technology have given us the power to save more lives than ever possible in the past. Medicine has put at our disposal the means to cure or to reduce the suffering of people afflicted with diseases that were once fatal or painful. At the same time, however, medical technology has given us the power to sustain the lives (or some would say, prolong the deaths) of patients whose physical and mental capabilities cannot be restored, whose degenerating conditions cannot be

Are you relying on medical technology to save your life? Perhaps you have never needed technology to help you. If so, do you think medical technology has gone too far?

Since the medical field’s discovery, advances are a necessity to keep up with the ever growing knowledge of the human body and what affects it. Doctors and scientists have been able to prevent an illness or reduce the symptoms of most illnesses that were considered lethal, such as influenza, tuberculosis, AIDS/HIV, polio, and the common cold. By virtue of technology, life-saving discoveries found in one country can be spread worldwide. These discoveries have led the way to the practices doctors use today to give a patient the best chance at a healthy long life, and it shows; the life expectancy in North America during the 1800s was roughly forty years (Pinsker). Today the life expectancy has dramatically risen to roughly eighty years. The

There have been many advances in the medical field such as; anesthesia, drugs, machines, etc. This has helped the doctors find alternative solutions to problems, and in return has helped them save more lives. In the article “Medicine” by Britannica, “Many new advances in anesthesia, and these in turn depend upon engineers who have devised machines and chemists produced new drugs. Other operations are made possible by new materials, such as the alloys and plastics that are used to make artificial hip and knee joints.” Advances in the medical field have truly helped modern doctors. Without the medicine, machines, technology they have now there’s no way the doctors could have saved the same amount of lives. As Brian Ward, the author of “The Story of Medicine”, states in his book, “Despite opposition, revolutionary scientists and doctors persevered and made some ground breaking discoveries,” (Ward 22). Even though the doctors during the Renaissance had little technology, they still made discoveries that impacted the medical field. The discoveries made by the Renaissance doctors were life saving. However, with the given technology that is commonly found in modern day society doctors are able to impact the medical and scientific fields and by doing so, save more lives than thought possible during the Renaissance. Within the article “Medicine” written by Britannica, it shows the importance of, “Many other developments in modern surgical treatment rest on a firm basis of experimentation, often first in animals but also in humans; among them are Renal dialysis (artificial kidney), arterial bypass operations, embryo implantation, and exchange transfusions.” Although testing on animals is cruel, it shows that modern doctors were not just experimenting on people. The modern doctors had a thought process to reduce the amount of deaths due to

In today’s medical field technology plays a big role when it comes to patient care. Technology is huge when it comes to giving the patient the best type of quality care when they are in the hospital. In the old days people would just write it down on a sheet of paper and record it by hand, which caused mistakes. Now with the Electronic Health Record those mistakes are drastically declining. Statistics have shown that using the Electronic Health Record has lowered Nursing mistakes as well as improved patient care. Our society has progressed through the years and has been introduced with the Electronic Health Record which has drastically improved our health care system. The Electronic Health Record provides great communication between

Besides the computer revolution, medical advances have caused tension between faith and reason. The medical advances of the Twentieth Century have many beneficial effects for humanity. Diseases that used to be dangerous or life threatening, like mumps, measles, and whooping cough, are no longer worries in todays medical world. Tetanus, typhoid, and the bubonic plaque can now be treated with antibiotics or other medicines. Vaccines, especially the polio vaccine, freed many people from the effects of a disease. Advances in heart surgery and organ transplants have saved many lives. Anesthetics and painkillers have been made to reduce or eliminate pain during surgery or a painful disease. Advances in cancer and AIDS have

Some technologies are useful, useless and some have toxic second natures. Technological advances help us live longer and make things more efficient. The medical field increase out