Medicine at present

It seems that one of the main issues that interests medicine at present is the prospect of further increasing the longevity of human life.

"After remaining fairly constant for most of human history, life

Expectancy (the average number of years a person can expect

To live) has nearly doubled in the past century."

The Future of Human Life Expectancy (Sonnega A, 2006)

However it seems that our natural survival instinct still drives us to live for as long as possible. Not that we would be better without such an instinct but as it stands I believe we are becoming a great threat to our own survival.

In this blog post I feel that its best to look into the large issues that medicine will be facing and try to see how medicine will combat the threats it is faced with.

OVERPOPULATION

(Spagnoli F, (2009)

As it stands our increased lifespan and chance of survival has led to overpopulation.

Every annual year the population increases by about 80 million, which is the equivalent of adding a new Egypt to the planet. As such the population is close to 7 times what it used to be in 1800, at this moment the population is on its way to 8 billion by July 8th 2019.

(Ryerson W, 2010)

This is 4 times the estimated sustainable population of earth.

(Figure taken from the U.S. Census beuro, last revised 27/6/2011)

If things keep going this way humanity is going to become (if it hasn’t already) its own biggest threat as we make the planet barren and unable of holding human life, Making the work of medicine at present counter-productive to human survival. A good example of this fear in the media (which was suggested to me by the people commenting on this blog), is the book by John Brunner Stand on Zanzibar. This tells of a science fiction based future in which overpopulation has led to war.

This Book shows marketability for the fear of overpopulation as a book was created around the concept and that book was popular. I do not wish however for both my big picture and medicine posts to be completely the same so I feel next I will take a more direct look into medicine.

(Brunner J, 1968)

Okay, let me pick a less apocalyptic subject:

(Image taken by me of a syringe I bought, 2011)

THE SYRINGE

The above is a photo I took of a syringe from a set I bought at a car boot sale; they were 1920's syringes and cost £5. This shows that these syringes have a definite market as people buy them from websites and in this case open markets.

So the syringe, a staple of medicine and a timeless symbol of the science. However it is feared by many for the pain it brings leading to phobias and even the syringe being used in horror films. When you think about it they are simply a system for transferring substances into and out of the human body. Something about that is terrifying to humans however; perhaps it is the idea of messing with the blood which is so very important to our survival...

(Krix H, 2009)

This is a little sister’s syringe from Bio shock. The simple device extracts a strange liquid called "Adam" from dead users of the stuff and collects it in a baby’s bottle at the top; the users of this syringe patrol the fantasy underwater city of Rapture to find this substance. Stepping away from the game and genre for a moment the syringe itself has been made from period appropriate objects as picked to create the original design by the designer. A gas pump forms the handle, a real baby’s bottle forms the bottle and the syringe is...well in not so sure about that part but it’s good to see how the original design was taken from real objects.

Both of these images show a great deal of popularity for syringes in media, firstly I can prove that people still buy syringes for all sorts of reasons simply because they were on sale and I bought them. Secondly I can show they have a media presence in all forms due to the face somebody has remade a prop from a popular computer game and even that has become popular!

Alright...new topic...I believe that there is a possibility for me in looking into other things based around medicine and fear, with that in mind.

TOP TEN MEDICAL & HEALTH MYTHS!

(Dubner A, 2011)

These include that Sugar does not make your kids hyper, you don’t catch a cold from cold weather, You can’t starve a cold or feed a fever (in fact odd food intake during illness is dangerous) and my absolute favourite you don’t need to drink 8 glasses of water a day. (Dubner A, 2011)

These are all myths that have been created by the health conscious to keep people safe however they do not have any real founding or proof, it’s interesting how people can get an idea from nowhere.

The image and information was taken from an online Poll where people vote for their favourite medical myths from a larger list. This shows popularity for medical myths because people voted for their favourites.

Well this poll shows that people are interested in disproving fears that people as a whole have accepted without proof, through that it proves the popularity of medical based fears.

I feel at this point I should move onto a fast advancing form of medicine which has appeared as a theme in recent popular media series.

PROSTHETIC LIMBS

(Jolly A, 2009)

A new and fast approaching avenue of science is that of biometric prosthetics, robotic limbs which replace the functionality of lost organic limbs. So far the majority of our knowledge on this as a culture has been science fiction, many science fiction films have introduced the idea of man merged with machine as the next advancement of human technology, and a recent popular example of Prosthetic limbs in media is the recent game release Deus ex, human revolution. A game which focuses on an industry and world where robotic augments to the human figure are completely open to everybody.

This game shows the popularity of this avenue of medical science as a media theme.

(Square enix. 2011)

Since Prosthetics were in this game as a main theme maybe I will find intrest in another one of the main themes of this game?

NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotechnology is the fictional idea of micro-robots which work in the body en masse and modify the body’s functions along with adding new ones; this however is just a scientific pipe dream...

Aside from nanotechnology being an interesting side point for science fiction games I can see no extreme attraction to using it for an IP.

(Orca S, 2009)

Unfortunately I couldn't find any really grabbing information on this to show that it is anything more then an add on theme for popular science fiction at present, so failing with fictional medical tech how about we look into some real medical tech which is just coming through?

HAPTICS

Continuing with my theme of  technology which is popular and being used in the field of medicine today I think I should mention the Haptics, a Force feedback system which makes simulated surgery as real as possible.

(Sensable inc. 2011)

The haptic is used in modern day medicine to train surgeons perform.

Ahh yes the Haptic, used a lot in 3D modelling, this program creates a pen tool which works in 3D and represents resistance to the wearer when they move against it. This product is already out, however this technology has a large amount of scope, for the moment it is almost impossible to get a hold of one as they are extremely expensive costing close to £9000 at the lower end of the price range, hopefully soon in the not too distant future they will become a little more commercially viable.

difficult operations without killing patients.

(Immersion.com, 2011)

This is an image of the CAE EndoscopyVR Surgical Simulator, a program using haptic technology to train modern day surgeons to perform very complex and dangerous operations without there being any danger of killing patients. However the company which make this product also talk about the possibility of the haptics performing the surgery instead of the surgeon! So robots that perform surgery aren’t too far from the operating theatre!

The very existence of this product shows its marketability, as does the possibility of it one day replacing surgons!

Well it seems medicine has made some great strides towards brand new technology, but what kinds of technology and treatments are they still making use of which we think are outdated?

ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY

(Meshelle, 2010)

Electroshock therapy is still being used today to the disbelief of most people,

"In fact 9 out of 10 people will reply "are they still using that?" when asked about it."
This phrase was taken from an Internet article on electroshock therapy.

(Meshelle, 2010)

Regardless of how archaic and dangerous it seems it is said that more than 100,000 patients are subjected to this every year worldwide, despite the fact that treatment has many associated dangers and side effects and uses theories similar to those of treatments abandoned in the Victorian era. So why would we still use it?

Well there’s only one possible reason...

.it works?

This treatment by definition is a popular as it it used. It is also a commonly used media idea thanks to Frankenstein (covered in my past post), however its also a very feared practise as it seems dangerous and painful. This links back to how fear changes how we perceive things, on top of this the existence of a discussion on the Internet which cites a poll taken about electroshock therapy also shows its modern media popularity.

So there still seems to be fear around a lot of the things medicine is capable of, however there also seems to be more genuine fears based around the natural worlds reaction to our medical advancements.

SUPERBUGS

(Roberts M, 2010)

Another recent medical problem which has occurred is this, Superbugs.

"A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has entered UK hospitals, experts warn."

(Roberts M, 2010)

Virus and bacteria which have become completely impossible to wipe out and very lethal, said to have developed in hospitals they threaten everybody who steps foot within one. The BBC have done an article on this brand new superbug which will go global soon and is unstoppable, it seems that the our societies obsession with cleanliness has come back to get us, it is always on the media's minds as the new age fear of incurable illness brought upon us by medicine.

The fact that there is a BBC news article on this topic shows that there is defiantly popularity around the subject and it defiantly has a media presence.

Well I seem to have found that a lot of medicine based stories are prevention of issues, so most of the time you report on the problems which medicine faces, with that in mind I feel I must talk about a certain event where the news played on a fear that people have always shared.

FEAR

(Wright E, 2004)

I think I should mention seeing as I am talking about recent medical based fears in the media a certain hoax I heard about where a BBC news article was faked reporting that a form of swine flu had caused the first ever zombie outbreak. This April fool’s prank was very well revealed and spread quite fast over twitter and other social media networks causing quite a small panic in 2005. It just goes to show that at any one point we are almost willing to believe the almost possible fiction these days since the truth sounds more far fetched.
(Stransky T, 2009)

I feel that this BBC news prank which almost caused a panic in England shows that this fear has a lot of popularity, on top of that zombies have a lot of popularity in media even though they have no actual factual basis. The still shot at the top of the screen is from Shaun of the dead, a popular zombie comedy, this shows the popularity of the zombie fear.

Which leads me to a final expression to media based medical fear and horror.

REEPO!

(Bausman D, 2008)

Repo is a musical movie in which the world has moved on to genetic perfection as the next stage of fashion. It is possible in this world to replace all your organs for designer ones and become literally a brand new person, however this has led to addiction to surgery and drugs which allow it and another form of corruption, the story follows a girl being introduced to this world whose father secretly repossesses the organs out of the bodies of those who cannot pay for them. A horrible world to exist in and one wreathed in horror; however it is not too hard to imagine our world becoming one like this, which is to me the basis of a good horror movie, possibility...

This musical shows that that medical based horror ideals have a popularity in the modern world by its own existence.

Well I seem to have come to the conclusion that to look into medicine I must look into the problems that medicine must tackle, it also seems that the media references I shall be looking into are usually horror based as a lot of the fears that medicine conjours make good horror themes. Alongside that I have started to find interest in the advent of technology as a viable topic of research, I think I shall continue to see if there was any popularity for these things in the past.