When Congress is not in session, then Washington can let other voices and issues have a stage. During last week's President's Day recess, the National Geographic Society and the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted events focused on the future of medicine.
Technology has made our knowledge of the brain move at breakneck speed. It is difficult, as our brain is comprised of more than 100 billion neurons making connections with each other, says writer Carl Zimmer.
Dr. Christof Koch of the Allen Brian Institute pointed out that it is actually possible during surgery to listen in on neurons talking to each other, and now a surgeon can pinpoint exactly where a seizure in the brain originates. With this new technology, we can obtain electron microscope photos of a "forest of neurons" that's strikingly beautiful at the same time it's wondrous.
What have we learned from all of these new discoveries? The work that is taking place because of new imaging techniques and listening operations will now allow us to literally write into the brain, said Dr. John Donoghue. It will allow for "neuro-modulation" in diseases such as Alzheimer's and turn thought into action for people who are paralyzed and who are "locked in," meaning the only movement they have is to move an eye up and down.
Experimental brain research now allows people to amplify their brain signals so nonbiological extensions of their bodies can move. As the technology develops, so do the ethical questions of what happens if it becomes possible to read someone's mind. Or how long do we want someone to live if we are able to stop the aging brain?
Speaking at the Wilson Center, thriller writer Robin Cook, a physician, has written fiction that has been able to predict where medicine is moving. His new book, "Cell," is no exception. His book predicts there will be a digitization of medicine and that a smartphone will become someone's iDoc or avatar doctor. Currently, says Dr. Robin Cook, there are 50,000 medical apps available. Imagine, he says, if these were linked together.
Despite the back-and-forth about Obamacare between the Democrats and the GOP, Robin Cooks says these linked medical apps will go together with the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, like "peaches and cream." He says it will democratize medicine, and we will be in the driver's seat as we control our own data. Much of your medical needs will then be monitored by personal smartphones, which will decide if a drug will work and refer patients to real expert physicians working at a call center if these iDocs determine it is needed.
As most of the world will soon have cell phones, this kind of medicine will be available to humanity even in places like South Sudan, where doctors are few and far between. Nano-sensors will be accessible via smartphones as medicine becomes miniaturized.
Access and availability will trump human touch, said Dr. Cook, and the days of the general doctor will be gone, as the smartphone will take care of monitoring the basics. Specialists will be more in demand, as a smartphone will be able to predict a heart attack three days before it happens. That will reduce costs and personnel in the emergency room. These medical avatars will also know if someone is sneaking a smoke and give immediate feedback about how that one cigarette is damaging your system.
Cook predicts that medical mistakes will be less frequent as the vast amount of data will be available to the medical avatar, similar to information flowing instantaneously on the Internet now.
Although this will revolutionize medicine, Cook says the "health industrial complex will take it on the chin" and there are huge ethical questions that are raised by this, too.
Like the conflict presented with the cells of Henrietta Lacks ("The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"), who will own your genomic data? How much of iDoc's findings will go into a general or specific database, and who will have access to it? Will it be you or the medical profession? How much hacking will take place? How much of the missing human touch will change outcomes for some diseases, especially for those with a mental illness?
These are huge questions, and Washington politicians will need to be aware of the implications of both new brain technologies and of medical technological advances such as an "iDoc" on a smartphone. The problem now will be with Congress. Currently, hopelessly locked into Democrat/GOP battles, there won't be willingness to attack these very complex and difficult problems of new technologies, which are evolving very quickly. Congress' failure to address these complex issues could hold back real progress.
Media wishing to interview Ellen Ratner, please contact [email protected].
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