Tag: Technology

The Public’s Love-Hate Relationship with Technology

There are many complex factors driving up the cost of healthcare, but one major factor is increasing medical technology. Often new expensive technologies provide incremental, or even questionable, additional benefits but can dramatically increase the cost of health care. This is especially true of in-hospital treatments. There are also, of course, medical technologies that provide significant benefits, and others that improve our...

/ July 27, 2016

Matt Ridley’s not-so-mythical “myth” of basic science

I’m a clinician, but I’m actually also a translational scientist. It’s not uncommon for those of us in medicine involved in some combination of basic and clinical research to argue about exactly what that means. The idea is translational science is supposed to be the process of “translating” basic science discoveries in the laboratory into medicine, be it in the form of...

/ November 1, 2015

Nature vs. Technology

Nathanael Johnson has written an interesting book about what "natural" means, and doesn't mean, drawing upon his own life but more importantly - the scientific literature.

/ March 18, 2014

The Future of Medicine

Eric Topol, MD, has written a book about the convergence of the digital revolution and medicine. It is full of fascinating information and prognostication, but I wish he had given it a better title.  He called it The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. Medicine will not and cannot be “destroyed.” It will be improved...

/ April 17, 2012

Time to Care: Personal Medicine in the Age of Technology

In 1925, Francis Peabody famously said “The secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient.” A new book by Norman Makous, MD, a cardiologist who has practiced for 60 years, is a cogent reminder of that principle. In Time to Care: Personal Medicine in the Age of Technology, Dr. Makous tackles a big subject. He attempts to...

/ February 9, 2010