Modern Medicine...accomplishments?

[telewinz]

Lord knows that we have the best doctors money can buy but what can our doctors COMMONLY do today (no pills, just skills and knowledge) that couldn't be done 55 years ago?  My point, are today's high priced doctors better or is it our pharmaceutical companies and disease prevention programs that should get most of the (unsung?) credit?  At 53, I credit the latter group.

[Morgan]

Surgery.

The successful cutting upon the human, in all its forms, has increased markedly in just the last 25 years, not to mention 55 years.

I recently had hand surgery (due to an injury) that would have been unheard of 55 years ago.  Twenty five years ago the world's best surgeon might have tried it if I was a tennis star or somesuch.

Successes in trauma surgery are largely responsible for the reduction in murders over the long term - 25 years ago the doctors couldn't save half as many people as they do today.

Neurosurgery, while still in its infancy, is getting out of the "if they can feed themselves when it's done, the surgery was a success" stage.

[MillCreek]

I work in healthcare administration.  Many of today's modern medical advances can be credited to advances in technology and pharmaceuticals.  As an example, the advances in imaging technology (CT, MRI, ultrasound, digitial plain films), interventional procedures (an angioplasty to open your clogged coronary arteries rather than performing open heart surgery), and the medical treatment of common diseases with medications (diabetes, HIV, hypertension, heart failure) are all revolutionary.  The doctors are probably not any smarter than they were 50 years ago, but they now have far more tools at their disposal than back then.

[Art Eatman]

Yeah, diagnostics and surgery, for sure.  I got a firsthand look at all that during my playtime with colon cancer...

Art

[mtnbkr]

I can vouch for surgery.  What was an outpatient procedure with minimal downtime for me in 2005 was major surgery with several weeks' recovery for my Mother-in-law during the 70s

Chris

[The Rabbi]

My father went to med school in the early to mid 1940s.  During that time he was part of a trial of a new wonder drug, Penicillin.  They had a patient with meningitis, which was 100% fatal then.  Dad said it was like a miracle.  Of course they ddint have enough of the drug and the patient died but the advance was that for the first time doctors could cure disease.  It had never happened before.
Back to the question: the biggest advances have been in drugs and diagnostics.  Doctors are much better at diagnosing things today than previously.  they also have many more options for treatment and are more effective in their choices.  Drugs are great but if you give the wrong one it wont do much good.  Credit the physician with knowing which ones work.

[matis]

In 2005 I had cataract suregery in both eyes: right eye in January, left eye in Sept.

Although I fell into that tiny percentage who had complications, I'm almost out of the woods now.  One more procedure for astigatism in my left eye and I can go shooting again.

When the surgeon cut (turns our my cataracts were too tough to pulverize in the short time allowed before the eye gets traumatized) the cataract out of my left eye, he said it looked liked a chocolate M & M!

I see fine out of my right eye and will soon see the same with my left.


Could this have been done 55 years ago?

55 years ago, probably even less time ago, I would be going blind.

Instead I see fine.


I told the surgeon after the 2nd surgery, "If guys like you hadn't studied what you did, guys like me would be blind."


I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be living in time when doctors can achieve such miracles routinely.


On the other hand, unless I'm sick, I stay away from doctors.


I'm just glad they're there when I need them.



matis

[K Frame]

I originally tried to reference mtnbkr's surgery as a major progression in the medical field. 25 years ago a gallbladder removal required a huge incision and extensive recovery time, but of course my internet service crashed.

Now, the majority of them are removed laprascopically, through a small puncture in the torso. The surgeon's hands rarely enter the body.

Another MAJOR advancement is in the field of microsurgery, specially the reattachment of limbs and digits. That advance, though, has seen the reintroduction of a medieval medical technique -- the use of leeches.

[Firethorn]

Another MAJOR advancement is in the field of microsurgery, specially the reattachment of limbs and digits. That advance, though, has seen the reintroduction of a medieval medical technique -- the use of leeches.

Ayup, I've read about this one.  There's a few companies out there busily trying to make an artificial leech, but it's tough to make something as effective and cheep as a medical grade leech.  Actually, they don't have anything as effective, and they're still looking at 100x as expensive.

The situation is actually simple.  The microsurgery is good enough to re-attach arteries, but not the smaller veins in fingers and such.  So, while the reattached finger can get blood, it can't get rid of it until the veins grow back.  They can't just cut the finger to let the blood out.  They ended up using leeches, which release anti-coagulant while feeding, allowing far more blood to pass through a smaller hole.

They're able to take far more blood than  a mosquito, for example, and do so in a far more controlled fashion.  The leeches, for one, don't leave that scratchy bump behind.

Lest people think this is too icky, these are sanitary, lab grown leeches, and the things are used only once.

Oh, and if you think that's bad, maggots are still used as a medical treatment...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1024_031024_maggotmedicine.html

Edit:

Oh, and http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050419_maggots.html (beware, graphic images at the bottom of treatment)

[Morgan]

...medical grade leech...

There's a phrase I never thought I'd hear.

[Iain]

I'm still here, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view. A lot of that is to do with stuff that has moved forward in the last ten years, and certainly major improvements made in the last twenty.

[Firethorn]

...medical grade leech...

There's a phrase I never thought I'd hear.

Part of the reason I like using it.  It simply means that it's been grown in a medically clean enviroment, is free from potential infection factors, and is of an approved breed.

It's the same for the maggots, but with more emphasis on the breed part, as some will eat living flesh, and some won't.  You, of course, want the ones that won't eat living flesh, but are happy with the enviroment of a rotting wound, as opposed to a truly dead critter or rotting log.

As for overall advancement of medical technology, we've advanced hugely in the realm of joint replacement, microsurgury as has been said, small incision techniques, etc...

Let's put it this way:  Over 50 years ago, there was no such thing as 'routine surgury' as we know it today.  You literally didn't go under the knife unless it was a matter of life or death.  Something as 'simple' as an appendectomy had a two week hospital recovery time.  With newer procedures, it's been reduced to a matter of a day, even outpatient.

Now just about every actor we know has gone under the knife for 'improvement'.  Hip replacement for the elderly is almost routine.  Joints and ligaments can be repaired and reattached.  Artificial knees for sports players.  Laparoscopy surgury which entails usage of a camera and a few cuts, only mm's in length (2mm for the camera).  Equipment now exists to grow and expand skin for usage on burn victims.  Directed radiation treatment for cancers.  Cochlear implants to restore hearing.  Laser surgury for eyes, to the point that I went in for it, just to eliminate my need for glasses, though I ended up being eliminated as a potential candiate for now.  I'll probably try again once I get out of the military.  

In short, we're not only able to keep people alive longer, we've made quantom leaps in keeping and restoring functionality.  Fewer people ending up in wheelchairs, with hooks instead of hands, blind, or deaf.  Heck, cochlear implants are actually so successful that some deaf people despair the 'loss of deaf culture'.

[matis]

[ Heck, cochlear implants are actually so successful that some deaf people despair the 'loss of deaf culture'.

Which just goes to show that we have a ways to go -- we still can't do brain-transplants.



I've read that these deaf groups opposed the implantation of a cocklear implant in a child because she'd then no longer be part of the sign-language culture, as Firethorn mentions above.


We need brain-transplants.





matis

[griz]

I have a friend who's wife would have died if she were around 55 years ago. She now has a donor kidney and is doing fine. Other than that, laser eye surgery, hip replacements, bypass surgery, orthoscopic (sp?) surgery, those and many others are fairly recent procedures.

[Justin]

Based on what I've read on stuff that's in development, we ain't seen nuthin' yet.  Medical treatment and technology are only going to continue to improve.

[Guest]

Chemo and radiation therapy for cancer, neurosurgery, and artificial joints would seem to be pretty significant improvements along with all organ transplants, skin grafts (and reconstructive surgery in general), pacemakers, and various types of laser eye surgery.

And none of that counts all the technological improvements with diognostic imaging and medications.