Most promising medical technological advancements?

[KarEntropy]

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Hi everyone!
I was wondering what people think are the most important medical technological advancements of the last decade or so, and what new medical technologies show the most potential?

 

[Instatewaiter]

here are a few off the top of my head: da vinci system, new gene therapies (although they generally end up giving the person cancer), electronic records making it easier to communicate

 

[JennyB]

electronic records making it easier to communicate

I agree that they have a lot of potential...because right now, they absolutely suck! At the hospital I work in, the new electronic system has only caused problems and resulted in an increase in the amount of printed material because only half of the record is actually electronic. So everyone ends up printing the other half that is online so they have a complete record. Plus, did anyone hear about the millions of dollars that Kaiser has lost due to a failing electronic MR system? Yep, definitely room for improvement.

 

[armybound]

personalized gene/drug therapy

and yes, online/electronic records and the bioinformatics that go along with them, like decision support

 

[EBI831]

maybe i'm the village idiot but i would say the internet. now, the possibility of self-education is limitless. u can pinpoint the cause of symptoms and possible outcomes and (even treat yourself in minor illnesses) and even manage your illness(diet etc). i think this will be a tremendous help to the field of medicine in increasing disease prevention, decreasing the amount of patients that show up for hypochondriac things like colds and other minor things. of course i have to acknowledge that with the internet there comes the enormous likelihood of bloggers and crap websites that are false and can lead to misdiagnosis or false sense of security but if we find away to filter these out by perhaps making the health sites(American Diabetes Association, NIH) etc more reader friendly and accessible we won't have the problem of ppl believing kitchen licensed MDs.

 

[smq123]

Hi everyone!
I was wondering what people think are the most important medical technological advancements of the last decade or so, and what new medical technologies show the most potential?

Of the last decade:
- Mapping human genome
- New ways of treating breast cancer (sentinal node, less radical surgery)
- drug eluting stents and using cardiac cath. to treat acute MI (how old is this, though?)

Most potential:
- HPV vaccine (?? - we'll see)

I agree - the internet has changed how nearly everything works in medicine.