‘Technology’ pervades every aspect of our lives, and has done so for more than a hundred years. ‘Technology’ has been with us since man picked up the first rock to make a tool of it. But technology in the sense of ‘scientific method’ is a relatively new phenomenon, which has been the springboard of the incredible advances in every day life.

Perhaps nowhere has technology had as much impact as in the field of medicine. Travel, communications, and wealth generation have all seen dramatic changes in the past one hundred years, but medicine, and medical research have made strides that compare well with any of the ‘miracles’ technology has produced in any other area of human endeavor or experience.

The changes that will impact us the most are in a sense parallel to the changes that have occurred in communications. Technologies that are today’s cutting edge science are tomorrows everyday tool. Telemedicine is, as the word implies, “medicine from a distance.”

tel·e·med·i·cine n.
The use of telecommunications technology to provide, enhance, or expedite health care services, as by accessing off-site databases, linking clinics or physicians’ offices to central hospitals, or transmitting x-rays or other diagnostic images for examination at another site.

   The use of tele-medicine and enhanced medical technology is now widespread and routine.The types of medical services that will take advantage of the new telecommunications technologies will continue to expand, and will continue to spread to virtually every office and clinic, rather than being limited to a few locations. Case in point: medical imaging. The use of MRI technology has not only spread, but electronic imaging has virtually replaced the old x-ray film-based imaging. Now when a radiologist is not available in a hospital or clinic, the image can be uploaded to a radiologist in another hospital, city, or even state. The resulting diagnosis can then be returned in seconds after the radiologist has completed his work.

In more and more areas, remote examination rooms in clinics are populated by “tele-doctors,” specialists who can perform “virtual” examinations and make a preliminary diagnosis, thereby bringing the benefit of their specialties to remote areas. Actual “remote surgeries” are being performed under controlled conditions. Again, specialists are able to literally ‘extend their reach’ into communities that could never afford to employ such specialists on a full time, or even part time basis. Delicate surgical operations are being performed where doctor and patient are literally separated by hundreds of miles.

Just as a combination of disciplines has yielded unimaginable progress in commercial and military specialization, medical technology and practices are progressing at even more astonishing rates and in astonishing new ways. The application of nano-technology in medicine is reaping incredible results. The ability to map the entire human genome in hours rather than years, is within reach. The benefits of such technologies are potentially enormous beyond imagining. For example, the techniques developed for mapping the human genome have spun off technologies that, from a single drop of blood, will be able to determine which anesthetics will be affective for a patient, and which will not. The ramifications of some of the developments already achieved are simply staggering.

How far will these technologies take us? One prediction is that, in the next 10 years, medical advances will double the human lifespan. Instead of 70 some years, the average human can expect to live a productive life well past a century. Think of what that will do to the world economy if that prediction proves accurate. And then think of the potential of an Einstein who lives to the ripe old age of 160 years instead of the 76 years he lived, and what he might have accomplished with those extra decades of productive life.

Tele-medicine. It is here, now, and more astonishing medical miracles are not far behind.