What field of medicine is currently "cutting-edge"?

[sillyjoe]

I was speaking with my friends father last night who is an interventional radiologist and let me know that when he first started working, the field of IR was at the forefront of technology and innovation. To sum it up: interventional radiology was a cutting-edge field of medicine relative to other fields at that time.

I am not saying I agree with this stance since it is definitely an opinion and I am not educated enough on the subject to have one. However, I was curious what all of you thought was a current cutting-edge field of medicine?

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[Ismet]

Moving to pre-allo

 

[jqueb29]

Surgery is always cutting edge.

 

[deleted436726]

Clinical/medical informatics - cutting edge in terms of technology and it recently became an ACGME-recognized fellowship.

 

[mimelim]

I gave a talk last week entitled Vascular Surgery: On the cutting edge. I was invited to give it again at a research symposium next month. Was a little tongue and cheek with the title, but it still holds.

 

[Catalystik]

Regenerative Medicine, for when devices and surgery can't return normal function.

 

[tiedyeddog]

Rad Onc? Radiation beams blasting cancer are pretty cool if you ask me...

 

[lifetothefullest]

I'm sure pretty much any research-oriented field has cutting edge aspects, from developing PET radiopharmaceuticals for radiological imaging to regenerative stem cell-based treatments to new immunotherapies.

 

[didymus]

I've been thinking about how 3-D printing of tissues will impact fields like transplant surgery over the next two decades. It's cool to think about how 3-D printing can be used to create prosthetics, and how these devices will be implemented in orthopaedics. This is a technology that will absolutely change medicine, and I'd wager that any of the specialities that can use 3-D printing will be on the cutting edge.

 

[ErbB1]

There's a couple I can think of:

Onc/Heme - Recent biotech advances are truly changing the whole field, where the idea of personalized, targeted chemotherapy is slowly becoming a reality and the standard of care. Molecular profiling of tumors coupled with the clinical advancement of therapeutics are allowing for far more robust treatments. Sequencing tumor biopsies and structuring treatment plans around known oncogenes are the future of the field.

Psychiatry - Similarly, molecular psychiatry research is making the whole field less "lets see if this drug works" and more "ok, we actually know the exact pathogenesis of this disease, let's treat it now." This whole field will continue to boom with the advent of modern molecular neuroscience. For example, large strides have been made in the knowledge of the molecular pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Psychiatry is becoming far more legitimate (not saying it wasn't before), but the future for this specialty is definitely bright and on the cutting on.

 

[Ismet]

I've been thinking about how 3-D printing of tissues will impact fields like transplant surgery over the next two decades. It's cool to think about how 3-D printing can be used to create prosthetics, and how these devices will be implemented in orthopaedics. This is a technology that will absolutely change medicine, and I'd wager that any of the specialities that can use 3-D printing will be on the cutting edge.

Plastics too. Apparently there's a 3D printing class/program that the plastic surgery docs here can attend. Maybe soon they won't have to take a huge chunk of fibula to reconstruct a mandible...

 

[CherryRedDracul]

I was speaking with my friends father last night who is an interventional radiologist and let me know that when he first started working, the field of IR was at the forefront of technology and innovation. To sum it up: interventional radiology was a cutting-edge field of medicine relative to other fields at that time.

I am not saying I agree with this stance since it is definitely an opinion and I am not educated enough on the subject to have one. However, I was curious what all of you thought was a current cutting-edge field of medicine?

Since I'm planning to go into interventional radiology, I am biased in saying that IR is right on the cutting edge because minimally invasive procedures is the future. Tumor ablation is a hot topic right now with huge market potential currently, so expect a lot of advancements in technology over the next few years.

 

[lifetothefullest]

Psychiatry - Similarly, molecular psychiatry research is making the whole field less "lets see if this drug works" and more "ok, we actually know the exact pathogenesis of this disease, let's treat it now." This whole field will continue to boom with the advent of modern molecular neuroscience. For example, large strides have been made in the knowledge of the molecular pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Psychiatry is becoming far more legitimate (not saying it wasn't before), but the future for this specialty is definitely bright and on the cutting on.

Definitely, but I think we're really far off from discovering the pathogenesis of these diseases. Schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, etc. have shown promising therapeutic targets in certain immunological targets but those molecular markers are far from necessary or sufficient for the disease. But it's definitely cutting edge in that so much more work needs to be done and is being done right now.

 

[Ismet]

Since I'm planning to go into interventional radiology, I am biased in saying that IR is right on the cutting edge because minimally invasive procedures is the future.

I've absolutely heard that as well. The number of procedures done by IR has grown exponentially.

 

[Goro]

Oncology. Did you see the 60 Minutes piece this past Sunday where a team at Duke is using poliovirus to treat glioblastoma?

I was speaking with my friends father last night who is an interventional radiologist and let me know that when he first started working, the field of IR was at the forefront of technology and innovation. To sum it up: interventional radiology was a cutting-edge field of medicine relative to other fields at that time.

I am not saying I agree with this stance since it is definitely an opinion and I am not educated enough on the subject to have one. However, I was curious what all of you thought was a current cutting-edge field of medicine?

 

[sat0ri]

Neurology and oncology definitely have a lot of research being pushed into them, though I don't know if they've hit the mark of innovative yet, but give it a decade plus or minus. Oncolytic viruses come to mind, and stem cell regenerative medicine in TBI, and there of course is a huge need to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

 

[sat0ri]

Oncology. Did you see the 60 Minutes piece this past Sunday where a team at Duke is using poliovirus to treat glioblastoma?

AH! You beat me to it!

 

[AspiringERMD]

Metagenomics research of gut flora and other microbiomes! All genetics research, really...

 

[angelicus]

Clinical/medical informatics - cutting edge in terms of technology and it recently became an ACGME-recognized fellowship.

This. I currently work for a bioinformatics company and I am amazed at how rapidly it has expanded into the clinical market. Genome, exome, and targeted sequencing applications have the potential to play a huge role in preventative medicine and disease diagnosis. It's pretty much applicable to every area of medicine so I hope to be doing something related to it when I finish school in four years.

 

[JPA178]

Urology is always on the cutting edge of surgical technology - lots of cool toys. Lasers, robots, microscopes, etc.